Sep 9, 2020 3 min read

Pennsylvania has been locked down for five-plus months for a virus with a U.S. death rate of about .03 percent, according to Centers for Disease Control statistics. As of this writing, of the 7,732 deaths in Pennsylvania, 5,218 were nursing home patients. Why did it take so long for the state health department to send help to long-term facilities to deal with a situation with which they were not equipped? Thanks, Governor Wolf.

Wolf’s lockdown that prohibited Pennsylvanians from accessing preventative health care poses an even larger negative impact. I love the dentist and go every six months. I rarely have cavities. If I do they’re small and fixed quickly. I was supposed to go in March, but Wolf forbade dentists from scheduling routine appointments. My appointment was rescheduled to June, but Wolf still held us in the lockdown, though cases in our county were low. I finally saw the dentist in July, long after my original date. I had three cavities that had to be filled at two August appointments. Thanks, Governor Wolf.

My father sees a dermatologist every six months because he’s had a few skin issues. He was scheduled for March, but because of the lockdown that appointment was canceled and rescheduled for August. He found out that two spots that have been worrying him may be skin cancer. They were biopsied and he’ll know soon if they are cancerous. If it’s cancer, how much worse has it become these five months he was prevented from having them checked? Thanks, Governor Wolf.

How many people were too terrified by the media to visit a doctor to have issues examined because they were afraid of COVID-19? But now they have later stage cancer that has progressed. How many people were denied surgical procedures such as appendectomies, joint replacements or back surgeries, and have suffered unnecessarily because of the governor’s arbitrary rules about what we can and can’t do?

Pennsylvania citizens have been denied access to routine health care and preventative screenings that have negatively impacted their health to “protect” us from a virus that has an 81% rate of recovery per the health department.

While all the lives lost are sad for their families, it doesn’t justify the total shutdown of Pennsylvania. The lockdown imposed on our citizens by the governor has both terrible long-term financial impacts such as closed businesses, but also serious negative health consequences that may last for the rest of their lives or shorten some lifetimes. Thanks, Governor Wolf.

Melissa Deal

Grindstone