04-07-2020, 07:25 AM
Aloha,
Eric Topol, a physician and editor-in-chief of Medscape, writes, "The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States will go down as the worst public health disaster in the history of the country. The loss of lives will make 9/11 and so many other catastrophes appear much smaller in their scale of devastation. Perhaps what we in the medical community will remember most is how our country betrayed us at the moment when our efforts were needed most."
It is in this spirit of precaution and aloha for our Hawaiian islands that I urge you to do everything in your power to cancel RIMPAC 2020. This is not the time -- nor the place -- to conduct an exercise that will bring roughly 25,000 soldiers to Hawaiian waters and Hawaiian shores. A number of these soldiers will have coronavirus. It is not fair to our communities or to the soldiers themselves to expose them to thousands of soldiers, many of whom will be infected. EVERYONE should be sheltering in place, along with the rest of the world until we can get a handle on this global pandemic.
There is no more urgent decision to be made at this time. Please do your part in defense of humanity.
Ke kaua kaua
Laupahoehoe
Eric Topol, a physician and editor-in-chief of Medscape, writes, "The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States will go down as the worst public health disaster in the history of the country. The loss of lives will make 9/11 and so many other catastrophes appear much smaller in their scale of devastation. Perhaps what we in the medical community will remember most is how our country betrayed us at the moment when our efforts were needed most."
It is in this spirit of precaution and aloha for our Hawaiian islands that I urge you to do everything in your power to cancel RIMPAC 2020. This is not the time -- nor the place -- to conduct an exercise that will bring roughly 25,000 soldiers to Hawaiian waters and Hawaiian shores. A number of these soldiers will have coronavirus. It is not fair to our communities or to the soldiers themselves to expose them to thousands of soldiers, many of whom will be infected. EVERYONE should be sheltering in place, along with the rest of the world until we can get a handle on this global pandemic.
There is no more urgent decision to be made at this time. Please do your part in defense of humanity.
Ke kaua kaua
Laupahoehoe
