the staff of the Ridgewood blog
River Vale NJ, Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi comments on the COVID pandemic and the governments response :
“I have struggled on how to properly phrase my thoughts on what has been transpiring over the past six months. There is no eloquent way to phrase what I am about to say so here it goes. The political element underscoring this virus is beyond absurd and the manipulation of people by both political parties is frankly disgusting.
In March a virus hit New Jersey and New York that overwhelmed our hospital systems. No one knew how to treat it and it was obvious that even our medical professionals had no idea initially of what to do. We didn’t know if it was going to impact the healthy, the young, the elderly or all of the above. We didn’t know if masks worked or didn’t. We didn’t know if our loved ones would die if they contracted it. We didn’t know how it spread or once it did what the impact on everyone in society would be. We didn’t know the fatality rates, the infection rates or anything else for that matter.”
“As a result we, as your elected officials, did the most prudent thing that could be done at that time and we collectively supported measures to contain it, and to give ourselves time to understand it and not collapse our health care systems. Regardless of political affiliation we reluctantly supported policies that temporarily stripped our citizens of civil liberties and businesses of their livelihoods. The operative term is temporarily. We never agreed to give these rights up in perpetuity and unchecked.
For the first time ever, forms of treatment became politically charged. Everyone with a keyboard and an opinion somehow became experts on infectious disease control and treatment. Medications that have been used for decades, including one hydroxychloroquine that was “safely” prescribed to me and my husband solely to go on vacation in January, suddenly became a Republican versus a Democratic issue. A medication that was given to people to travel to exotic lands suddenly became a political football with politicians banning its use as a treatment option due to its “deadly side effects” or promoting it as the potential cure for COVID.
Politicians who were screaming at the President in February and March, calling him a Xenophobe for wanting to shut down international flights from China, suddenly became the saviors of all things COVID by shutting down anything and everything for months on end. Because the President wanted to shut things down, health experts, including those from NY and NJ were encouraging us to go out and about, even instructing us on how safe it was to go to Saint Patrick parades days before our region shut down before reversing course and saying it wasn’t safe to go anywhere.
Over the past several months people have become so blinded by political motivation that decisions haven’t been made for what is best for the people but rather what is the politically manipulative thing to do. Decisions have been made not for health and safety but rather to pick winners and losers among industries. Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes were somehow safe but buying something at your local mom & pop shop was not. Protesting with thousands of people somehow could no longer spread the virus but eating at a favorite restaurant outside would cause you and your family to become sick. People standing on soapboxes demanding open and transparent government started supporting refusals of our own administration to provide data, information or justification for Executive Orders, even to legislative branches in their own states. Those who claim they support expansion of voting rights have cheerfully backed the removal of choice to safely vote in person on a machine. All logic is lost.
During this charged political climate, we failed to protect our most vulnerable residents who were living in our long term care facilities and we ended up with the highest death rate in the world while collapsing our State’s economy. We now watch as those who have been struggling financially push back, having to fight for their livelihoods as they watch their businesses collapse. These people have been called Knuckleheads, have had their businesses threatened, have been fined and had their licenses threatened. All under the guise of “health and safety” yet no one will provide any information as to how these decisions are being made or what scientific metric is being used to guide these decisions. Anyone who has challenged these decisions has been put into the “penalty box” and their industries were denied the ability to even plead their case as meetings were refused to be scheduled.
As we move forward the lessons learned over the past several months include 1. We must insist on OPEN AND TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT. 2. We, as citizens, must become engaged, educated and informed. 3. Ask questions and demand accountability. 4. VOTE and know who you are voting for. If your representative hasn’t fought for you and your rights — vote a different way. It frightens me how quickly people are willing to stop asking questions and just assume that those elected will make the right decisions for them.
Finally, a comment about humanity. This weekend the CDC revised how it was counting COVID deaths and some people took to their computers to gloat that they were right all along and this was a HOAX. Having lived in the epicenter of the crisis I assure anyone who believes this was a hoax that it indeed was not. I personally know dozens of people who lost a loved one to COVID.
For anyone commenting that these people would have died anyway, I question whether we have lost our ability to have empathy for people who died and their families? Yes, people may have had multiple issues but that doesn’t mean that they were going to die right then and there. The people who died may have had numerous additional years on this planet. They may have been there for another wedding, a graduation, a birth, a family holiday. The people who died may have had effective treatment for their underlying condition. They missed out on spending valuable time with their loved ones and they were our friends, our neighbors and our friends’ loved ones. We should not cheer the reclassification of their deaths or diminish their dying in any sort of fashion.”
” The political element underscoring this virus is beyond absurd and the manipulation of people by both political parties is frankly disgusting”.
Holly, please give me an example of the manipulation from each political party.
Just one example for each party.
Holly, go lightly !
See what I did there ?
Thank you for your thoughtful insight into the current pandemic. People will use statistics to make it appear that the incidence of death from COVID-19 is low and that this is a hoax I have lost friends to COVID-19 and it is no hoax. I think the best way to see if COVID-19 has impacted us is to look at the same time period over several years (for the same locale) and see if there is a significant change in the expected deaths vs. the actual deaths. On 4/27/20, the NY Times reported that 20,000 more people had died in NY than the average of previous years from March 11 to April 27 (expected was about 7,000 and we had about 27000 deaths) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html
Even ignoring location and looking at the country as a whole – there are at least 200,000 more deaths for all reasons from March 1 – July 25 than expected. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html
I am not sure what Governor Murphy is using to decide what to do with reopening businesses. Walking around shopping in a supermarket with a mask is not the same as dining indoors without one and equating them as some have done, shows lack of thought. I do know that during this summer, there were people ignoring social distancing at bars and clubs on the shore, and parties held in Alpine mansions where people did the same. There was a slight uptick in cases in NJ during the summer.
This virus is no hoax and those who believe otherwise are endangering all of us if they don’t take precautions. Coughing in someone’s face, throwing your groceries on the floor as you have a temper tantrum because the store has requested the wearing of masks, or knocking a woman down with her own cane because she asked you to wear a mask are just some of the nonsense I have read about or have seen on the news. There are limitations on ones freedoms in emergency situations so that everyone may avoid danger.
If indoor dining at restaurants is limited to 50% capacity, you and I know that some will break the rule and pack people in. Some have already defied the governor.
I don’t have the solution and yes, we are in some cases, making decisions that might be too stringent – but at stake are the lives of the citizens of Bergen County, NJ and the country. To their credit – Cuomo and Murphy’s policies have resulted in flattening the curve and lowering the number of deaths. Other states like Georgia and Florida are paying heavily for their continued ignoring of the need for putting some rules in place.
I think we need to work together both Republicans and Democrats on how we approach this pandemic.
you forgot to mention all the long term care patients they murdered and the imminent economic collapse that will hit NJ and NY
Well if it’s in the New York Times it must be true. LOL
I’d rather check the CDC website and look at the data myself.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends
Look at New Jersey.
Look at Cases.
Look at deaths.