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Teachers have duty to keep
students safe from COVID
A California teacher was not vaccinated, took her mask off to read a story, and infected 27 people, many of them students too young to be vaccinated in her school. Our experienced medical teams can research and reveal just who is the ground zero ‘superspreader’ in these breakouts.
The paper did not reveal the school or the name of the teacher, but it will come out and “shame on her” for not getting vaccinated, not wearing her mask, and going to schools with COVID-19 symptoms.
I hope she rethinks her choices, as we teachers are mandated reporters and are charged with protecting our students.
Konne Ainsworth
San Jose
All groups deserve choice
of death with dignity
I am appalled by the op-ed by Bishop Oscar Cantu (“Minorities need health care, not life-ending prescriptions,” Page A6, Sept. 3) that reveals his lack of compassion for those who have chosen or wish to choose to end their lives with dignity rather than continue to suffer due to a life-limiting disease. How dare he judge a law that has clear safeguards that prevent abuse.
As a hospice nurse, I have met and come to know well people who have opted to end their lives with dignity, and it is not a decision that is made lightly. How dare he assume he knows what has been tried or not tried to end excruciating pain, prior to making this difficult choice.
Any person in California should have access to the medications that are supported by our medical aid in dying law regardless of race or economic status. Attack disparities in health care access, not this law.
Sue Kensill
San Jose
Article sells female
leaders at CSU short
As an emeritus faculty member at San Jose State University who was involved with admissions and retention efforts for many years, the article on Sept. 3 about the CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025 (“Will freshman class be initiative’s payoff?” Page B1) caught my eye.
I eagerly began reading the article but didn’t get beyond the first sentence without becoming upset when Ashley A. Smith wrote “Ask any university official and he’ll say … ”
Smith needs to do her homework. Of the 23 CSU campuses, 12 have female presidents. And, many more of the upper echelon of administrators are also female.
Susan McClory
San Jose
Hanson’s right-wing rants
increasingly incoherent
Calling on all friends and family of Victor Davis Hanson. The man is in serious need of an intervention. All of his recent columns read more like the ravings of a madman and indicate an individual with such a warped and unhinged worldview he can only see all the world’s problems as having one root cause: wokeness. His obsession with this topic, and the use of such language as “self-created apocalypse” and “civilizational collapse,” truly borders on maniacal.
Addressing climate change, bringing the COVID pandemic under control, and converting the GOP from a Donald Trump cult back to a real political party, requires sanity and serious discussion. I suggest the Mercury News dump Hanson and find a right-wing columnist who is open to compromise and brings sensible ideas to the table.
Michael Rovero
San Jose
Texas turns its back
on the rights of women
As of Sept. 1, Texas has become the real-life version of the fictional city, Gilead. The ban on abortion is now in effect and Texas no longer supports reproductive freedom for women. It’s a dangerous and scary reality and a true abuse of power. The Supreme Court allowed this law to stand, undermining a key legal precedent that protects women, Roe vs. Wade. The freedom of women is in jeopardy.
After six weeks of pregnancy, around the time a heartbeat may be detected, women can no longer have an abortion. At six weeks, most women do not even realize they are pregnant. The reasons for women getting abortions are endless, and should not matter. What a woman wishes to do with her own body is her choice, and it should remain her choice.
Kenia Aguilar
San Jose