Dear Editor:

Apparently I’ve learned history in another universe. I was taught smallpox vaccination helps prevent deaths. I received diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio (two times), rubella, pneumonia, shingles and COVID vaccinations. Yet, right now Gov. Mark Gordon, Powell Valley Healthcare and other institutions have determined, how I can’t decide, that COVID vaccinations are a tool of the devil, unsafe and threaten personal freedom.

Let me share with you what I see threatened: my mother’s life.

As a resident of Powell Valley Care Center, my mother and countless other persons are in a setting that does not allow for social distancing. In addition, her dementia makes wearing a mask impossible without shackling her hands. She cannot avoid being touched, breathing air or living with those whose personal freedoms will be compromised if they are required to get a COVID vaccination.

R.J. Kost, on behalf of the Powell Valley Healthcare Board, stated he prefers personal choice and living with the consequences. Right now those who are unvaccinated have no consequences, but those consequences can easily kill my mother.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock perhaps said it best when he said “any individual might think they have a constitutional right to get sick if they so choose, but they don’t have a constitutional right to get other people sick.” This was from Aaron Bolton‘s July 15, 2020 Yellowstone Public Radio news release.

I have no idea what we have done but I feel as though we returned to the dark ages when everyone hunkered down inside their homes trying their best not to die from bubonic plague. We know better now, we understand the preventive power of vaccinations.

Why is this still such a political football?

HELP my mother live.

Diane W. Martin

Powell