Legislature should reopen virtually

The Legislature should reconvene the session and hold virtual public hearings.

Maui County heard public testimony for hours on its $800 million budget, reviewing it line-by- line for anyone watching on BlueJeans or via Akaku. Budget spreadsheets were also shown in real time, as council members decided the fate of individual budget items.

In any economy, demand creates more supply, and the demand comes from good wages. Government leaders have recently floated austerity measures, such as pay cuts, that will only hurt our economy. Instead of draconian measures, the Legislature could pass much-needed sick leave, or revenue-generating policies to shore up the budget.

Making budget decisions behind closed doors would show that elected officials don’t care about the hard-working families who are suffering during this crisis. State legislators should follow Maui’s lead and ensure that people are uplifted, not left in the dark.

Justin Hughey

Wailuku

COVID-19 immunity isn’t guaranteed

COVID-19 antibody testing should not currently be used to make any decisions regarding an individual’s immunity to COVID-19, or that person’s risk of spreading COVID-19 to others (“Coronavirus antibody tests will start Thursday in Hawaii,” Star-Advertiser, April 29).

These newly marketed tests have been rubber-stamped by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use without the FDA or other independent research corroborating the tests’ accuracy and validity. There isn’t any current research that proves being antibody-positive for COVID-19 will protect that individual from COVID-19 re-infection.

Prior research with related, more common coronaviruses shows that even if you have antibody against these viruses, if levels of the antibody aren’t high enough, you can still catch the infections.

And then there is the issue of the accuracy and validity of these tests: for example, whether the test’s rate of false positivity (tests positive, but falsely so, so that the individual is still actually susceptible to disease), is an acceptably low percentage. Food for thought — and hopefully, pause.

Jeffrey Lim, M.D.

Aina Haina

Protecting health is first priority

The first and foremost objective is protecting the safety and health of our Hawaii population. Reopening our borders too early could magnify and intensify the devastation of the coronavirus.

We are currently in this position because the politicians who are willing to compromise our safety once again failed to do so from the very beginning, placing us in the position we are in now.

Visitors must be tested at their place of origin before boarding any air carriers to Hawaii. Once visitors arrive in Hawaii they must be tested again before leaving the airports. This procedure also should be in effect for visitors arriving by ship.

In the event we have positive test results on arrivals either by air or water, our borders must be closed immediately.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Patrick N. Custino

Kaneohe

With technology, Hawaii can adapt

“With crisis is opportunity,” an old adage.

COVID-19 uncovered the fragility of our tourism-based economy — an unprecedented crisis, and also an opportunity for our Hawaii.

Our opportunity here is to fully embrace the information age, with its wide variety of good, high-paying, high-demand careers for our people: medical, information technology, business, engineering, research, design, financial and more.

We learned that not everyone must drive someplace to get things done. The internet proved resilient and traffic congestion on our roads disappeared.

Many changes once thought too hard or impossible became reality: telecommuting or working from home; routine telemedicine consults; online education; and giving the environment time to recover. The public, private and community sectors working together can make us the “High-Tech Hub of the Pacific” and less dependent on tourism.

This is our opportunity to provide a better future and improved quality of life for our people.

Glenn Takemoto

Mililani

Maui not alone in dumping sewage

Your editorial, “Welcome victory for Maui reefs,” was spot on, as far as it went (Star-Advertiser, Our View, April 27).

You also should have recognized that the U.S. Supreme Court decision against Maui’s wasteful practice of pumping sewage into the island’s groundwater, whence it easily found its way into the ocean, is a victory for all of Hawaii’s reefs.

Unfortunately, while the Lahaina, Maui case heard by the court is egregious, Maui is not alone in polluting its nearshore waters. Hawaii County dumps 1.6 million gallons per day of barely treated sewage into a lava tube less than a mile from the ocean. Tracers confirm that this effluent has contributed to the impairment of Kona’s once-pristine coastal environment.

At the end of the day it is neither pono, nor economically sensible, to be throwing away a resource that can be reclaimed, sold, reused, and will even contribute to recharging our increasingly challenged aquifers.

Rick Gaffney

Kalaoa, Hawaii island

KINDNESS GOING VIRAL

Even in these days overshadowed by the coronavirus, bright spots exist. If you see kindness or positivity going on, share it with our readers via a 150-word letter to the editor; email it to letters@staradvertiser.com. We’ll be running some of these uplifting letters occasionally to help keep spirits up, as we hunker down. We are all in this together.

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