LETTER: COVID is very real

In his July 26 letter to the editor (“Virus reality”), Carmine A. DiFazio apparently has his own reality. First, the vaccine was developed and its efficacy was determined during the Trump administration “in cahoots” with the pharmaceutical industry. Distributed by the Biden administration, the vaccine is working exactly as promised.

The problem is that many Americans have still not gotten vaccinated. It was never promised that you would not test positive for COVID. It was that you will not get more than a mild illness, as is the case with the Texas legislators he mentioned. COVID is now a disease of the unvaccinated and the rampant rise in cases is in this population. They are the vast majority of the very ill, the hospitalized and the dying.

While the virus may attenuate, as he proposed, how many of the unvaccinated will suffer and possibly become long haulers or die? Until people accept that COVID is real, vaccine fears are unsupported and problems are very rare and they need to get vaccinated, the disease will continue to rampage.