Schoolkids and COVID, midterm elections and more

Schoolkids need to feel connected

For today’s youth, any promise that the COVID-19 pandemic will come to an end is a hope interrupted ["Omicron halts new normal in schools," News, Jan. 30].

Remote learning has interfered with the natural ebb and flow of peer relations and turned many a home into a pressure cooker as opposed to a sanctuary.

Many of today’s parents, especially moms, have had to juggle employment and childcare. For two years, for months at a time, students would alternate between boarding the school bus or popping open their laptops.

One serious consequence of chronic uncertainty is that school connectedness is interrupted. School connectedness is the belief by students that they feel valued, included, respected and supported by adults and peers who care about their learning and about them as individuals.

We cannot allow school connectedness to become another casualty of the pandemic. Especially for marginalized young people who are at increased risk for feeling alienated and unsafe, as if no one on Earth cares what becomes of them.

— Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach

Finally, it looks like the major hassles of the COVID-19 pandemic are coming to an end. That’s good news for everyone, regardless of your political leanings. So, now might be a good time for each of us to reflect on the past two years and assess how we handled the pandemic.

Here are some questions to ask yourself. Are you proud of the way you conducted yourself over the past two years? Did you do your best to help create a safe environment for all concerned? Did you cooperate when asked to do things that you might not agree with but were deemed to be for the greater good?

If you had to do it all over again, would you change the way you responded?

It’s been a tough two years for all of us. More so for some than for others. But now that it appears to be almost over, perhaps we can patch this small piece of our great divide and move forward as a community again. I, for one, hope so.

— Michael Bompane, Nesconset

We’re not losing it as a country, we have completely lost it.

Hundreds of thousands of families with fathers, mothers, children, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles have had someone lost to COVID-19. Families have mourned relatives killed in car accidents, in shootings and drug overdoses.

Are COVID deaths any different? Don’t people mourn the COVID victims when they are lost? Yes, they do, but there is a difference — it was easily preventable by a vaccination and a booster shot.

Where is the sense of responsibility and decency to oneself and one’s family? Too many children have become orphans when it was so preventable.

Mourning families are likely to say "if only." The full sentence is: "If only they had gotten vaccinated."

Why are COVID deaths, which have been more preventable than the other noted deaths, apparently more acceptable? Wake up, protect yourself, your family and others. Then you become a champion.

— Jeffrey Myles Klein, Centereach

What 2022 voting decisions will signify

A reader pointed out what is ahead for voters in this year’s midterm elections ["Voters face dilemma in 2022 election," Letters, Feb. 15].

If you go into the voting booth on Election Day and your choices are between record-breaking inflation or the literal toppling of American democracy, and there is any hesitation about which lever to pull, then this country has bigger problems than any of us can fathom.

— Robert Emproto, Huntington

This is true meaning of ‘taken for a ride’

In an era when electric and hybrid cars are becoming all the rage, I was glad to see Newsday finally review an unabashed gas-powered vehicle that proudly gets 8 miles per gallon in city driving: the 2022 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport with a base price of $3,825,000 ($4,301,450 as tested) ["At $4M, the pinnacle of gas-powered cars," LI Business, Feb. 17].

Sure, somewhat similarly sporty cars like the Honda Accord Sport get close to 30 mpg city, but not many can boast speeds up to 273 miles per hour. That’s perfect for quiet nights on a beach road.

So the price tag of the test vehicle cost nearly half a million bucks more than the base price. What extra options would I get for my $4.3 million? That could be the deciding factor between ordering just one new Bugatti or a second one for the wife.

— H. Mitchell Schuman, Brightwaters