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Don’t forget dental staff
during vaccine rollout
As a practicing pediatrician, I urge the county to include dentists, dental hygienists and their staffs early in plans to vaccinate against coronavirus.
Dentists and their staffs are unappreciated essential health care providers to the community and are even more at risk than many other essential workers including other health care workers. Their work requires prolonged contact with unmasked patients. In addition, serious and expensive health consequences occur from patients postponing both routine preventive care as well as required treatment of dental problems. Many senior citizens require dental procedures which they may delay due to fear of COVID-19.
In the past, dental care has been unwisely left out of many discussions and plans about health care. Please don’t leave dentists and their offices behind in the coronavirus vaccination process.
Mary Beth Hughes
Los Gatos
Not housing homeless
carries unbearable cost
When thinking about developing new housing for the homeless it is easy to focus on the upfront costs. $80 million to house 132 unhoused people and upkeep expenses seems like a crazy cost for Milpitas and the state to be investing in (“Judge rejects Milpitas residents group’s bid to block sale of hotel for homeless housing,” Nov. 11). This money could go elsewhere, right? No.
We are living in an unprecedented time with an uncertain future. It is cruel to deny people housing during a pandemic that has cost millions of Americans their jobs. Especially with an eviction moratorium expiring, we need to think about making housing available for the unhoused.
Homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area is not a new problem. We have been seeing trends of increasing rates of homelessness and yet nothing is being done to address this. Milpitas is working proactively against the looming housing crisis. Other Bay Area cities need to do the same.
Paige Oka
Concord
Pandemic exacerbates
need for foreign aid
With the current state of the world, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s safe to say that people need help.
Before this pandemic, developing countries already needed aid, yet the International Affairs Budget is less than 1% of federal spending. The conditions people were living in, plus adding a global pandemic, is truly a disaster.
The U.S. federal government needs to raise the international affairs budget. Not only would raising the budget save the lives of millions of people, but this could also help boost the United States economy in more ways than one. Raising the budget can create new markets, which creates more jobs. When people are making money, they spend their money which goes back into the economy.
The United Statesand, more importantly, the world need this now more than ever.
Maryam Issa
Bay Point
