Gig workers are sometimes forgotten as economy recovers
Support ride share drivers
I am rated a 4.98 on Uber after 4 years and a perfect 5 on Lyft after 2 years . After reading many articles about riders coming back faster than drivers and how everybody is so upset with the prices and the lack of drivers, I have a question.
Did anybody give any thought about the fact that when the pandemic started that most drivers were left making no money for at least 30 to 40 days before benefits went into effect?
Did anybody wonder why Uber and Lyft didn’t take five to 10 really good drivers that made a lot of money in every market and pay them $50 a day just to stay on the road? Did anybody worry about Uber and Lyft drivers while they were locked up in their houses using Instacart instead of going to the store and utilizing Uber drivers?
The answer is no. Just like Uber and Lyft, sometimes the customers also don’t care about the drivers. They should be demanding Uber and Lyfttake care of us.
- Patrick Gilroy, Myrtle Beach
McMaster needs to stay in his lane
Gov. Henry McMaster has no more business telling a teacher what to do with the students in his or her classroom than he does telling a woman what to do with her uterus. He needs to stay out of both.
- Elizabeth Jones, Columbia
Support rescue plan relief
In SC today, 250 cities and small towns struggle without benefit from the American Rescue Act due to our state not applying for the federal money available, allocated to us, our share of the pie, our chance for better recovery.
All we need to do is apply. They play politics, while many suffer. Shocking, deplorable. We, the people of South Carolina, live in a state where the leaders are deaf to the cries of those less fortunate among us.
Thank you, Island Packet, for bringing this to our attention. Now that we know, it is up to us to do something about it.
Shame on our US congresspeople and shame on our senators. Shame on our governor, and state and local governmental leaders. I ask all SC citizens to look into their counties and ask the status of our application for American Rescue Act relief.
Today, let’s knock on their doors, call their offices, and write letters in hopes that they get read and published. Let’s act and watch what happens together, and when the time comes, vote accordingly.
- Susan Baukhages, Bluffton
End domestic violence
We are moving in a new direction in South Carolina with many new voices and stances.
As a community, we need to take an active role in combating domestic violence and the trauma that it causes, and taking claims of domestic violence seriously and not looking the other way. We are one, the voice for the voiceless and strength for the weak.
The Pinehurst Community Action has started a new initiative regarding combating domestic violence and its root causes and bringing healing through nature for the trauma of domestic violence.
I am reaching out to you to begin a conversation about how we as community can take domestic violence seriously and bring us up to the national level of awareness and solutions.
- April Jones, Pinehurst Community Action
Vaccines work. Use them
I am totally amazed at how many people, especially those in the news media, have no clue about how vaccines work. News media outlets report that there are breakthrough infections of COVID-19 in fully vaccinated people. That isn’t even news. Vaccines help a person’s immune system recognize an organism that has invaded the body so the body can react faster than the organism can replicate. This shortens and lessens an illness and helps keep people out of the hospital or grave. The shorter the illness, the shorter time to transmit to others. No one intelligent has said you can’t get the infection once vaccinated.
To report that people who are vaccinated still get the virus is somehow a vaccine failure is pure ignorance and irresponsible as well. This misinformation has and is convincing the public that the vaccine does not work, which will cost lives.
As a physician, I know vaccines, masks and social distancing do work and save lives. Listening to liberal or conservative politicians is a waste of time and dangerous. Stop spreading misinformation about vaccines and help the public survive this. Stop listening to moron bloggers online as well.
- Rodney Fitzgibbon, Columbia
This story was originally published August 8, 2021 at 6:00 AM.