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A shot in the arm

It is true that the COVID-19 vaccine is only as good as the number of people who take it. Keep that in mind. You want to see your family and friends? Get the shot when it becomes available. You want to get back to work? Get the shot when it becomes available. You want to gradually return to the “normal” life you had before the virus? Get the shot when it becomes available. It’s been challenging to find sustained joy during this bleak 2020. But we can feel some sense of relief as the coronavirus vaccine begins to slowly make its way through our beleaguered society, ...

Whatever you believe

Whatever you believe, we hope you agree that, in this season of both hurt and hope, these holidays are meant for us all to recognize what we mean to each other. No more so than now, when a disease threatens all of us while our best defense against it outside of science is each of us. Do you get that? Do you understand that, to wage a successful battle against this deadly virus, our hope for a bright future is directly tied to our mutual empathy ... and decency? Indeed, during this just passed Hanukkah and now Christmas and upcoming New Year holidays, many family and friends will ...

Prayers for those we love . . . and for brighter days

These are dark days, folks. Dark because of the virus among us. Dark because, as a result, we’re losing more people, evident by the large number of obituaries being published in your community newspapers. It is with great sadness that we report the loss of more people from our world ... our lives ... more than normal. So many wonderful people ... our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community members. We’re compelled by their legacies and their spirits to offer some simple prayers as a means of comfort: Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every ...

Our hospitals need financial, staffing help

Many U.S. hospitals are under siege because of COVID-19. Both in personnel and other resources, they need all the help they can get. Earlier this year, when most people thought the epidemic would peak by this fall, Congress acted wisely by including in the CARES Act a provision suspending part of a 2011 law. That statute reduces Medicare payments to hospitals by 2%, through something called the Medicare “sequester.” Whether that ever was wise is questionable. It certainly makes no sense now — but the CARES Act suspension expires on Dec. 31. U.S. Reps. David McKinley, ...

Come on Congress, people need help

ore federal help is merited because of job losses, business closings and more caused by the coronavirus. Yet, all we keep hearing is that Congress is “close” on agreeing to more federal aid to help sustain people. Unless members of Congress find a way to compromise and give Americans a Christmas through a new round of COVID-19 relief funding, the holiday season will be grim for tens of millions of people. Among many provisions in the original CARES Act was one that states had to spend all the money allocated to them under the bill by Dec. 30. In March, that may have seemed ...

Give educators credit for adapting to new methods

OVID-19 has been an enormous challenge to the nation’s public school system. It has forced tens of millions of students to stay at home, often for months at a time, rather than go to class. Give educators credit for doing what they could with “remote learning.” Thrown suddenly into a whole new way of trying to reach students, many teachers have done remarkably well. Still, there is no substitute for having students in seats in front of a teacher. Arguing that technology can be a substitute for regular human contact is dreaming. In the wake of the epidemic, the great ...