In his Sept. 5 letter (“COVID vaccine is useless, and Nemitz should know it”), Peter Petersen, whether unwittingly or not, did a public disservice in time of a dangerous pandemic.
A medic from Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service prepares a booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 14. The COVID death toll in Israel is 80 per 100,000, The New York Times reported Thursday, compared to 197 per 100,000 in the United States. Tsafrir Abayov/Associated Press
Yes, it is true that the COVID infection rate is similar between the U.S. and Israel, even though the latter has vaccinated a far higher proportion of its population.
However, Petersen did not mention that the death rate from COVID in the U.S. is more than twice that of Israel. This glaring disparity in death rates reflects the increasingly well-documented risks faced by the unvaccinated to the highly contagious and mutation-prone virus.
Do your homework, follow the science and, most importantly, for the common good (if not your own), take the jab!
Jeff Goddard
Sebago
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