To the editor:

When I was little, my father, Edward Hughes, told me that when he was a boy, he caught whooping cough. He said it was the scariest moment of his life. Despite my Grandmother, a nurse’s best efforts, he and his brother both caught the virus. His mother and his father didn’t sleep, fearful that the boys might die. My father recounted how he struggled for breath and told me it was incredibly painful to cough. His whole body was in extreme pain and he thought he would die. An FBI agent, he told me, “I was never more afraid.” He survived. He then made the decision to support my getting vaccinated as a baby with vaccines that were not available to him when he was little. He spared me from a painful and possibly deadly experience with disease.

We are incredibly lucky to live in a nation where we have access to the best scientists in the world, the best labs and the opportunity to even have access to vaccines. There are people living in other nations who do not and they are suffering.

After World War II, the British realized they had faced incredible losses in their population. They knew that if they did not ensure their citizens had access to public health, any enemy that attacked them would have an advantage. They knew it would make their population stronger, healthier and more able to defend their nation in times of war. As a byproduct, giving their citizens access to healthcare ensured they remained a global power, able to defend themselves and ensuring a strong economy. They would never again face financial ruin and the massive losses of populations such as when the plague spread across Europe.

Do we want to be weak as a nation? Do we want to be overrun with viruses and disease, watching our seniors dying alone in hospitals, seeing children struggling to breathe. This virus is sneaky, it is invisible. We do not see the suffering up close. Unlike the plague, the bodies are not thrown in the streets for all to see to be burned in mass graves. We have a more sanitized way of dealing with death –bodies placed quietly in plastic bags then in tractor trailers with freezers parked behind hospitals, but it’s taking a toll on our stability, our power as a nation and the lives of our friends, family and neighbors. Not to mention the emotional toll on nurses and doctors who are at their breaking point.

Many people come to Southwest Florida to care for their family members, others to get cancer treatment. They are especially vulnerable. With the Delta variant, Covid has become more stealthy, quiet yet more deadly.

Recently a mother of two, who worked in healthcare chose not to get the vaccine. Her daughters pleaded with her to do so. She died of Covid, leaving two orphaned, grief-stricken children behind. She caught that virus from someone who did not wear a mask, who did not get the vaccine.

Locally, we have had law enforcement members die from covid.

In Virginia, a couple who thought they were young and healthy and did not need to worry, died from Covid leaving five children behind.

I work in a crisis facility with persons who are vulnerable, who have mental illness and do not have capacity. One of our clients died of covid. It was the nurses at my workplace who saved me — warning me early on when the virus was first found in the U.S. that this client had a cough, and we should all social distance. They made her wear a mask to protect us. She died a month later. We spend all our time now at our facility reminding our clients to social distance, to wear masks and get the vaccine. We want to protect them. We do not want them to get sick or die or spread it to others.

Covid is hurting us on many levels. So many have not seen loved ones, we have lost friends, family, co-workers, clients, neighbors. And it’s hurting our economy. Our enemies are testing us, too. According to a report by NBC news, foreign nations are spreading misinformation, hoping that they can divide us.

During World War II, we came together, we realized that if we were divided, we would lose the war and our democracy would die. People became determined, they banded together, grew victory gardens, stepped up and joined together to defeat the enemy.

In this new era, viruses, and disease, will be our greatest threat. And how we respond will determine if this nation thrives and remains strong or falls like the Roman Empire.

It’s up to all of us to put our country, our health, and our economy first, band together and defeat this virus.

We defeated polio. We know what to do. The question is will every American rise up and meet the challenge? We have the power to stop this. This could go on for years or decades like the Black Plague or we can nip this in the bud like we did with polio.

Everything is at stake. At this time 763,000 Americans have died of this virus and our economy faces potential ruin as covid threatens supply chains and plunges us into economic decline. Winter is coming, and people will be more vulnerable with the cooler weather to having weaker immune systems.

It is up to all of you to put America and the health of our nation first.

C.A.Hughes, MSW

Cape Coral