Letters to the Editor: With no obvious national strategy on COVID-19, states blunder

To the editor: I have just read yet another article revealing shocking discrepancies in testing and contact tracing in California, this time for nursing home inspectors, laying the blame on the state’s Department of Public Health.

Please imagine how things would be different if there had been a coherent national strategy from the beginning. Imagine a coordinated plan of action that looked at all the possible effects of this pandemic on businesses, employment, schools, testing and contact tracing.

We could have conquered this by now. We could be on the road to reopening by now.

Instead, the lack of leadership from Washington has crippled us as a nation in the face of this virus. States can only do so much.

Leslie Hamlin, Claremont

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To the editor: I visit my 98-year-old mother through the window of her room in a skilled nursing facility here in Santa Monica. The facility does a great job continuously testing and monitoring its employees.

Shockingly, you report that state inspectors are not routinely tested for COVID-19, yet they are routinely sent out to the skilled nursing facilities that house the people most vulnerable to this virus. You’ve got to be kidding.

Georgette Rieck, Santa Monica