To the editor:

In most news regarding vaccination status, mask mandates and hospital bed availability, there is little mention of one human’s responsibility for infecting another. The arguments for vaccination stress the need to contain the pandemic. Arguments for wearing masks stress the protection you get while wearing one. News items give the impression that if you don’t get vaccinated you could become the next victim of COVID-19. All true. News items often state that someone tested positive but remained symptom-free, and we breathe a sigh of relief.

However, there is little emphasis on the impact on other people, including your family, when you don’t get vaccinated. If you test positive, you are contagious. You infect others, including children who are vulnerable to this disease with the current variant. You might not get dangerously ill or die, but the individuals you have infected might. When you or your family members don’t get vaccinated or wear a mask in public, you put everyone around you at risk. You infect others. If you are asymptomatic, you are contagious. You are spreading this disease and potentially putting others in the hospital. This aspect of the fight to get people to be responsible needs to be more prominent in the news and in discussions about promoting measures to contain this horrific outbreak. What gives you the right to infect other people? This is not all about you. This is about the lives of your family, your neighbors and your community. It is about saving other people.

Jane Gnojek,

Lawrence