An open letter to Governor Murphy (Opinion)

Dear Gov. Phil Murphy,

Whether you think you're actually saving lives or you just worried about poll numbers, stop this insanity now! People are suffering and the situation is desperate. Mental health issues are at crisis levels. Suicide numbers aren't being reported publicly, but they are surely on the rise. It is NOT your job to lock people in their houses and keep people from operating their businesses or making a living.

You can give guidelines and advise people on best public health practices, but you do NOT have the responsibility or the constitutional authority to shut down the state. Cancer patients are not getting the treatment they need. Other critical medical procedures are being delayed because of your orders. You might be causing more death and long-term harm in continuing this ridiculous lockdown.

What you've done is not only a financial disaster, but a social and health disaster as well. You say you're going to go forward based on science. Well the current research is in, and the death rate from COVID-19 is not nearly as bad as originally FEARED and the severity to most people is scant and the threat to children is almost non-existent.

Perhaps we've passed the point where even the smoke and mirrors most New Jersey governors use to hide our fiscal woes won't work anymore and you're hoping some federal bailout from this will fix it. It won't. They know that trick that you and a handful of other governors are going to try, and it's not going to happen. Even the "bulletproof" salaries and pensions are at risk thanks to your draconian miscalculation on how to handle this problem.

It's time to admit "operation lockdown" was a complete failure, medically, socially and financially. Time to put on your big boy pants and take the bold step of telling people they're not in the grave danger you and your "experts" once thought. Tell the people who are medically vulnerable to be careful, even stay home with temporary state benefits. And to those you scared to death, admit a mistake was made, a big one. Not just that many of them voted for you, because they thought you would save their state benefits, but they you and the so called "experts" got how to handle this situation, wrong. Dead wrong!

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