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New leadership should
improve vaccine effort

A Friday East Bay Times article details the vaccine availability problems for Kaiser Permanente members (“Some elderly waiting their turn for coronavirus vaccine,” Page A1, Jan. 22). Kaiser opened appointments to 65 and older last week, at the direction of the state, only to have a massive rush for appointments its system could not handle. So now many people 75 and older, the medically fragile, and others who need the vaccine are unable to get it right away.

As one of the over-65 people who managed to get one of those appointments, I’m pained by those looking to excoriate Kaiser for being unable to supply vaccines for all in my age group.

Instead, the blame goes to the inadequate directives from the previous administration, which tossed the vaccine to the states, making them figure out how to administer it in the middle of a crisis. I applaud the new administration for creating the leadership we all desperately need to get the care we need.

Teri Shikany
Danville

Policy steps could
speed vaccinations

I believe there are several steps California can take to ensure 90% to 95% of its population are inoculated against COVID-19. It simply takes political leadership.

Possible steps include: require proof of inoculation when you register to vote, renew your driver’s license or vehicle registration, register to enroll your child in school (entire family must have proof), obtain a marriage license. The list goes on. These are privileges you have as a resident in California. They are NOT basic rights. The state can deny these privileges for many legal reasons.

The state could set a timetable to comply, such as end of 2021 or a deadline tied to the availability of doses, whichever is sooner.

Too many Californians are refusing the inoculation for no good reasons. They are selfishly putting other Californians at risk. It is time to get tough on these people. It is truly a matter of life or death.

Ray Fortney
Danville

CDC must recover from
dishonesty of Trump era

Re. “New CDC Director takes over agency in midst of crisis,” Page A3, Jan. 21:

Two kinds of lies, both inexcusable, deeply stained the Centers for Disease Control under Donald Trump.

One kind was politically self-serving, the same as we got from everywhere under his control.

The more insidious kind, notably that masks didn’t work on the public, was told to achieve public health goals, namely to give frontline workers all the masks. Instead, this illogical claim sabotaged CDC credibility and arguably enabled Trump to politicize mask-wearing.

The CDC should acknowledge both types and pledge never to do either again.

Doug McKenzie
Berkeley

Ideas for GOP to bring
divided nation together

Regarding Marc Thiessen’s column suggesting ways the president can unite the Democrats and the GOP (“3 steps president can take to unite Democrats, GOP,” Page A7, Jan. 22), I have some suggestions how the GOP can help unite the country.

First, it’s unreasonable to put the onus on the Democrats to be “unifying” and “accommodating” when the Republicans for years have adopted a “my way or the highway” attitude. It would behoove the Republicans to move to the center and work with the Democrats rather than the other way around. It is not forgotten that Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blocked then-President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee while speedily pushing former President Trump’s last nominee.

Secondly, the Republicans need to publicly acknowledge Joe Biden’s win and congratulate him even though their choice lost the election.

Lastly, support the trial of Trump in the Senate even if he is not convicted. As it stands Trump is like a splinter that if not excised can fester and cause a dangerous infection.

Roger Wood
Fremont

America suffering
Trump hangover

Donald Trump’s presidency was a disaster. It started with a lie — “the biggest inauguration crowd in history” — and it ended in ignominy: skulking out of town to undeserved, self-awarded honors and pardons for associates who committed crimes against American democracy.

It was four years of 24/7 grifting and dishonesty, plundering of the nation’s wealth for personal gain, untold violations of the law from the emoluments clause in the Constitution to the Hatch Act.

The promise of “all the best people” ended up being an army of misfits and unqualified wanna be’s. Shattered reputations, hundreds of thousands needlessly ill or dead, refusal to admit a loss in an election, armed assault on the pillars of democracy, and now the broken (or never-worked) Operation Warp Speed needs to be renamed Operation Speed Bump.

For Trump, his term of being drunk on power is over, for America, the hangover is just beginning.

Douglas McClelland
Brentwood