HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0843.207 2018-2020 COUNTY CLERK
COUNTY OF HAWAII
RECEIVED
Time 8:33ort By de
Fri 3/20/2020 8:38 AM
Emergency COVID19 meeting testimony Date MAR 2 0 2020
To: Council Testimony
Aloha, I am a mother and resident of Kailua-Kona. I am writing to urge our Island's leadership
to immediately close all nonessential businesses on the island, and to mandate people stay home,
to mitigate the spread of COVID19.
As I am sure you know, this virus escalates exponentially. Our island's medical system already
cannot handle what is inevitably going to happen. Please put our community's well being over
the tourism industry and shut it down. The longer we wait to enact these drastic measures, the
longer and worse this whole thing will play out.
My partner has been showing symptoms of this virus (except for a fever) for over a week. He
was denied a test by his kaiser doctor and told to cough into his arm and wash his hands
frequently. We thought he was getting better but just this morning he woke up with worsening
symptoms. We are staying home. Moral of the story is community spread has already happened,
but we won't know if he has it or not, we are acting as if he does. We need our government to
ACT NOW to stop this spread with MANDATES not suggestions.
On another note, please hire more staff to work remotely on processing our resident's
unemployment benefit insurance claims. We have zero income now as my partner works for a
hotel and I run and clean our Airbnb (which is now an expense, not an income since we have had
all of our reservations cancel).
I am more worried for the health of our community than the economy at this point, as i hope you
are.
Thank you for doing the right thing. Let the other states and countries going through this be
models of what to do and what not to do. Please don't let this escalate.
Mahalo,
Monica Stone
Comm. No. �'i�'w1
Ref. To: P(C
Ref. Date MAR 2 0 2020