Editor,

President Trump has announced that he is pulling the 2020 Republican Convention out of North Carolina because the state is requiring conformity with pandemic-related social distancing requirements, including the wearing of masks.

Trump craves the adulation he will receive by cramming thousands of screaming delegates into a convention center.

Accordingly, he is planning to move the convention to a state where pandemic precautions will be ignored — Florida, Arizona, Texas, etc.

The Republican Convention will flaunt social distancing and mask-wearing regardless of the inherent likelihood of coronavirus transmission. Trump will certainly find thousands of lemming-like adherents to fill the venue. The official Republican position appears to be to pretend there is no pandemic. And there are several governors who will ignore medical advice and fall in line with that narrative in order to accommodate Trump’s ego.

The delegates have the right to jeopardize their own health in order to do homage to their leader, but we here on Whidbey Island have rights too. We have the right to demand that delegates returning from the Republican Convention be placed in quarantine for the two-week incubation period and then tested to see if they are virus-free before they are allowed to return to civilization.

Whidbey people followed the guidelines and this kept our infection rate very low. As a result our hospital is not overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases. We did our part! Let the Republicans ignore science at their own peril. We deserve protection from their insanity. Quarantine the returning delegates.

John Thompson

Coupeville