To the editor:

In the 2010 action movie “Knight and Day,” our hero, Roy, played by Tom Cruise, warns our heroine, June, played by Cameron Diaz, to beware of men in dark suits who promise to take her someplace “safe and secure.” The reality is that such a place doesn’t exist and is just a euphemism for her imprisonment and death.

One can’t help but consider these lines in light of our current pandemic predicament. As of May 13th, 2020, the Minnesota Department of Health indicated that our state of more than 5.3 million people had experienced 12,917 positive tests for Covid and 638 deaths. These numbers represent 2/10ths of ONE percent and 1/100th of ONE percent of the total population of Minnesota, respectively. These relatively low numbers were achieved even after the specious tactic – in order to obtain federal funding — of counting as Covid those deaths with significant, underlying causes.

As of Wednesday night, Governor Waltz revised his “Stay at Home” directive to his “Stay Safe MN” mandate. Under this “new plan,” most retail businesses will be allowed to reopen but at 50% capacity and with the specter of compliance to the “Covid-19 Preparedness Plan” hanging over the heads of customers and shop owners alike. Bars, dine-in restaurants, barber shops and hair salons all will remain closed for the foreseeable future and church services continue to be suspended. That we willingly appear to accept the latter is most telling: Either we don’t believe that the life of the spirit is at least as important as the body; or, no one feels the loss of Church services to be any big deal; or, no one is willing to encourage their pastors to do the heroic thing in order to care for their flocks. In any event, the message is bleak.

Since 80% of Minnesota deaths are from nursing homes (Matt Walsh, The Daily Wire, May 13, 2020), perhaps we could focus — as Governor Ron DeSantis did so successfully in Florida – on protecting these beloved members of the community and allow the the remaining 99.99% of healthy, able-bodied Minnesotans to get back to work and back to life.

Expecting our government to keep us “safe and secure” is an unserious proposal for any thoughtful American and an insult to robust, hardworking Minnesotans. Let’s not get in the car with the suits. There may not be a hero to bail us out.

Kathleen Sonnek

Lake Crystal