Ed Williams, Jefferson City
Dear Editor,
Now that the election has ended, one important issue has not been addressed. I asked you to ask the candidates for presiding commissioner of Cole County why Boone County has 108,000 more people than Cole County but about the same number of deaths from COVID-19.
During your forum, both candidates said they did not trust the numbers. Neither one of them seemed surprised about the question and had a prepared answer. The fact is Boone County enacted rules to prevent people from contracting and passing the virus to other people. The Cole County Commission had the same information as the Boone County Commission but did not want to lower traffic in the bars and restaurants, and thereby lower profits of businesses. The Cole County Commission felt that profit to businesses was more important than lives of citizens. My estimate is at least 100 people died from COVID who would have been alive if the Cole County Commission had a response similar to that of Boone County.
This idea of incorrect numbers was simply a lie to make Sam Bushman look less culpable. Remember we are only talking about Cole County hospitals, doctors and public health agencies. Does Bushman believe these people lied about the death of citizens? Apparently he does. Can Sam Bushman or the News Tribune give us the names of anyone whose cause of death was listed as COVID-19, but actually passed away from something else? Unproven lies of Chamber of Commerce people should not be accepted by citizens.
Bushman and the News Tribune should be able to furnish names and dates of death of people in Cole County who died from another disease but was listed as COVID-19. I think we would need about 20 names for proof. Any smaller number could be furnished by Bushman and his chamber of commerce buddies using bribery. There have been numerous examples of the chamber using immoral, dishonesty and lies to get their way, and Bushman is just a part of them.
You will not be able to furnish the names I request because such a deception never happened. We shall continue to have lies told for the profit of Chamber of Commerce members. It always goes back to the desire of the Chamber people to avoid their fair share of taxes and get their hands on as much of our money as possible.