Letters: Align testing rules for customers, workers; Hawaii’s winter economy depends on vaccinations; Comparing Republicans to Taliban a falsehood

Vaccine requirements are going to be more common (“New challenges in the workplace,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, Sept. 6). On Sept. 13, employees must either vaccinate or else test once a week. However, customers must vaccinate or test every 48 hours.

The cognitive dissonance is obvious: Employees are there interacting with customers and staff for eight hours a day, and customers are on premises generally for only an hour or so. How is this fair or even logically reasonable?

Please modify the mandate so that customers must only test weekly as well (or else employees should test every 48 hours). Otherwise, it seems clearly discriminatory.

Richard Stancliff

Makiki

Offer cash rewards for getting vaccinated

To get many more people vaccinated, give out cash or gift cards from VISA or Master Card — $100 or $200 at all vaccination sites. The U.S. Treasury Department allows American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to be used for vaccine incentive programs, including cash or in-kind transfers.

The city should use a portion of its remaining $386 million in COVID-19 ARPA funds to give such cash or like incentives, especially in areas with low vaccination rates. This is the quickest way to quickly increase our vaccinated populace, a must for emerging from this pandemic.

Rodney Funakoshi

Kakaako

Fans attend games elsewhere, but not here

The deadly delta variant is still surging in all 50 states. But watching the Saturday football games, shown on television around the country, you would think everything is normal in their states, as their home stadiums were filled with thousands of football fans. I don’t think anyone was wearing a face mask.

But Hawaii will not allow its football fans to attend University of Hawaii Warrior football home games at the UH campus. I am not saying this is wrong; I’m just saying what’s going on in other states.

Melvin Partido Sr.

Pearl City

City bus ignores social distancing guidelines

Recently, I was on a bus from the University of Hawaii to Waikiki with nine other riders. The regular-sized bus stopped on Dole Street and the driver allowed 27 more people (masked) aboard. All seats became occupied and people stood shoulder- to-shoulder in the enclosed space.

This situation happened again two days later. I informed TheBus about my safety concerns. Their canned response included, “TheBus is obligated to provide access and safe transport to all based on the guidelines provided by OTS, Inc. and the City and County of Honolulu.”

TheBus completely ignored the viral transmission issue and the city’s own rules for indoor gatherings. To me, during a pandemic of a highly transmissible variant, “providing access to all” jeopardizes “safe transport.” If restaurants have to be at half capacity, then buses should, too. All it takes is one packed bus to become a superspreader event.

David Christopher

Hawaii Kai

Hawaii’s winter economy depends on vaccinations

In view of the fact that tourism is such an important part of the economy of Hawaii, the rate of vaccination is a disappointment. Every family has some of its members affected by tourism.

We in the colder parts of the world are looking for places to go this winter. We are looking for places with high vaccination rates, and many places just don’t have the supplies. You in Hawaii have all the vaccine you need.

The other aspect is that the sooner people get a vaccine, the sooner these mutations will cease and dissipate.

You, the unvaccinated, hold this winter’s economy on your bared shoulder.

William Rock

Ottawa, Canada

Comparing Republicans to Taliban a falsehood

The false and desperate narrative drones on ad nauseum. Apparently, there are some who simply dive into the pool without any deference to original intellectual thought as a measure of balance.

Kevin Wile demonstrated this tendency in textbook fashion in his assertion that the Taliban already is here in America in the form of the Republican Party, which need only change its name (“Republicans imposing tyrannical laws,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 7). Oddly, well-known pontificator Rosanna Arquette recently provided this gem: “The Taliban extremists are here in America just with a different name.” Familiar, no?

People, really? Do Republicans — or anyone else in America, for that matter — run around butchering homosexuals and out-of-line women with bloodless ease, or engage in sex-trafficking with the indifference of an usher taking tickets? They do not. And those making the desperate comparison in order to deflect from the real story at hand know it.

Stephen Hinton

Waialua

Texas law belies talk of autonomy, freedom

The new Texas anti-abortion law has empowered bounty-hunting packs of self-righteous, greedy informants whom the legislature — not trusting their intimidators’ moral purity — felt the need to motivate with $10,000 rewards to be extracted from their powerless prey.

This creative refinement on the tactics of the East German Stasi belies whatever vestigial verbiage that Republicans still murmur about autonomy and freedom. They are terrorizing poor women who won’t have the resources to fly to California or Hawaii to receive safe and protected abortions.

My hope is that women of sufficient wealth and status, who can escape this tyranny, will rally to support their beleaguered sisters with the realization that they may be the next casualties in the war to restore female subservience.

For that is ultimately what this fight is about: the continued empowerment of women, which causes so much anxiety among those who remain fearful of a fundamental reorientation of ancient hierarchies.

David Lee

Makiki

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