Dear Gov. Northam,
Please protect the health of Virginians during the Covid-19 crisis. Your policies – including a stay-at-home order and the suspension of non-essential business activities — have been challenging but utterly justified. Your actions, grounded in the best available science and medical advice, are saving countless lives while earning broad public support. A science-based and proactive approach is precisely what we need not only in the current crisis, but for the broader crisis of climate change looming on the horizon.
But some Virginians have recently been vocal in asking you to drop your prudent, data-driven approach to the Covid-19 pandemic. Risking their own lives and the lives of others in public space, these protestors have asked you to accelerate the lifting of restrictions. These individuals and groups – some of them anti-vaccination extremists and/or openly political partisans – have not produced consensus-based medical science to support their demands to loosen restrictions.
We, the signers of this petition, share the frustration of all Virginians in this time of economic and social sacrifice. The emotions of fear, sadness and anxiety are real and valid. Which is precisely why now, more than ever, we must be guided by science – not emotion or politics – in this crisis.
So again we applaud you for your prudent, life-saving policies and beseech you not to yield to the noisy voices that would have you do otherwise.
Sincerely,
