One of the cornerstones of our legal system and our society in general is the concept of innocent until proven guilty, but with the pandemic our leaders have switched it to guilty until proven innocent. The California Department of Public Health, in my opinion, is at or near the top of that list.
With their announcement last week that we are moving back to purple and businesses will have to close down, or stop indoor operations, we are being declared guilty. We are being told we can’t have Thanksgiving with our families, can only worship under a very specific set of circumstances, we have to wear masks or we can’t conduct business, schools can’t open and in general we are all “super spreaders”of the virus.
Can they prove that someone caught it at a gym, at a store, at a salon, at a restaurant, at a school, at a church, at the movie theatre? But those are all being restricted. I am familiar with privacy laws regarding medical conditions, but if this pandemic is as dangerous as they want us to believe why not some transparency about where people are being infected? Is it at parties? At a school, is it at a certain place of business? Is it at the hospital? At a church?
Obviously, something’s going on when we were averaging 3 to 4 cases a day for a few weeks, and now 15 or more. Are people catching it outside our county, and we are penalized for it?
Why not a strongly worded press release from county health stating in the last two weeks over 50 residents have been infected at a specific location? Then when the pandemic started, information was being released about the people who died—now nothing except on the county website and it’s very general.
As citizens we have the right to know IN OUR COUNTY, NOT JUST THE STATE where we are most at risk, and how the virus is being transmitted most frequently.
I am personally tired of being considered guilty, that I am assumed to have the virus, that activities that I have participated in with no one getting sick are being singled out as causes. So to the state and county health officials, I say PROVE IT!
To the citizens of San Benito County, I say watch your personal freedoms.
Randy Logue
Hollister
