I am concerned about the content of a recent full-page paid advertisement appearing in the July 8 edition of The Leader, on Page 19, paid for by a Joseph C. Coomer.

I understand the critical need for advertising revenue for the ongoing survival of The Leader as a viable local newspaper.

That said, I feel the editors need to take some responsibility and stance regarding truth in advertising. When advertisements contain outright falsehoods or clearly manipulated content that encourage behavior that puts all of us at risk in this time of a SARS CoV-2 pandemic, it is time for Leader editors to either reject the advertising content or counter this with correct information.

I refer specifically to this paragraph:

“Democratic Governors are Continuing the Lockdown. It is obvious that the collateral damage to the economy is far worse than the disease. It is also obvious that Democratic governors are playing politics with the disease by keeping the lockdown as long as possible. Their theory is a bad economy will help the Democrats win the Presidency in November.” 

(Observe that it is the Republican governors who are opening their states up.) There is also evidence like in Arizona where there was a spike in new positive test persons, but there was only one new case that required hospitalization. Some suspect that many of the new positive test results are “probable” with no test being performed to confirm the positive result. (A better method of judging the pandemic is the number of new hospitalizations.)

When we check the state of Arizona COVID-19 data online, we see the expected pattern: Spikes in the numbers of new positive tests are followed by increases in hospitalizations and increases in deaths, several days to three weeks later. Note that the charts can be difficult to evaluate, due to reporting issues and changes. Often data is not recorded or posted on weekends, etc. 

However, that does not absolve us of responsibility for understanding what is happening. This is not a time for anyone to publish misinformation about this pandemic.

Sandra J. Stowell
PORT TOWNSEND