Is San Luis Obispo County willing to kill us?

April 25, 2020

Jerry Bunin

OPINION by JERRY BUNIN

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop being extremely angry that local government is trying to assign some economic value to my life.

My life is priceless. So is yours. Government shouldn’t be willing to kill me. Yet it is now the official position of local government that public health is no longer the top priority in fighting COVID-19. It is now being balanced with reopening the economy.

Official documents regularly admit that that position will cause more people to get infected and die.

When you voted, did you agree to give local officials the power of life and death over you, your family, friends, co-workers and everyone else? I didn’t and won’t.

It is stupid, dangerous and completely wrong for San Luis Obispo County officials to be working so hard to jeopardize our lives in order to restart the local economy prematurely. Of course, it is wildly premature – no vaccine, woefully inadequate testing, continuing shortage of medical equipment and thousands of people dying every day.

Mary Shaffer and I have tried to buy face masks for a month. Our orders never get filled or mailed to us. We wear bandanas as if something I used to sneeze into is my chief line of defense against a global killer. How dumb is that?

Here is my plan. Every government official who approves reopening the economy in the next few months should be required to volunteer that their entire family and everyone who works for them will serve as guinea pigs to see if their plan works. If they get sick, too bad! Whose fault is that?

I am going to read the county plan when it is released, allegedly early next week. However, my efforts will be useless. It will only make me angrier. No elected official cares. They already made a decision.

County supervisors and mayors have already asked Governor Newsom to allow them to ease restrictions before the plan is finished or approved or publicly released so we could comment on it. In other words, my opinion and yours and regardless what is in the plan, a decision has already been made.

That is offensive – bad decision-making, bad government, idiotic and grounds to recall them.

Every poll you see shows that 70 to 80 percent of the public opposes loosening the restrictions. An AP poll released today reported that 95 percent of Democrats and 78 percent of Republicans believe the restrictions in place are about right or don’t go far enough.

Who do our elected officials represent? How do they know what the majority of us want?

Everyone one who goes out while restrictions are still in place is seeing dozens of people who are not wearing face masks, are not following social distancing guidelines, and are so selfish that they have willfully chosen to kill people.

I am also going a keep a list of every local business that opens when it should not, and I will never go to that store ever again. If if doesn’t value my life, I don’t value that business.

PS: I don’t respond to Trump supporters or people who think objective news reporting or polls they don’t like are fake.

Jerry Bunin is a long-time Oceano resident, former journalist and also the former goverment affairs director for the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast.


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Jerry, do you think the government will just keep writing checks to us? If you want to lose our way of life, keep thinking like a lib. The money tree is already about empty. People need to work to pa taxes. If you are financially set, fine. Stay at home curled up in a corner and afraid to look outside.


This article is ridiculous.


You’re a big boy, make your own choices. If you don’t like that the economy reopens, don’t leave your house. If you don’t like wearing a bandana for a mask then don’t wear one. But don’t blame others for your choices.


A few things…

First, our government is set up to do exactly what it is doing, I would think with your background you would know how it works, there is no time for a public election for this issue and that’s the only way to possibly get the outcome you seek. If polls were accurate then Trump would not be your President.

Second, who made your life more important than those that provide you with the food and services you need to survive? Regardless of whether or not the government can keep handing out checks, someone has to be there make the products or services you’ll use the money on.

Third, our society won’t endure much more of this, eventually it will break down to the point of being every person for themselves and there aren’t enough LEO’s out there to stop the have-nots from getting a little “equality” from cowards such as yourself.


Your own video has two *urgent care* doctors call this no worse than the flu, then 30 seconds later the video cites it’s 10x more lethal.


“Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”


People die from poverty…lives are destroyed by a sudden severe lack of income….why would we be so selfish as to allow the cure to be more deadly than the virus….because some guy is afraid…stay home if you are afraid….Jerry….


“Everyone one who goes out while restrictions are still in place is seeing dozens of people who are not wearing face masks, are not following social distancing guidelines, and are so selfish that they have willfully chosen to kill people.”

Geez Jerry, get a grip….


You are aware the courts have ordered the jails and prisons emptied out and the police have been ordered to practice catch and release with the criminals, aren’t you? I would be more afraid of getting my car broken into or getting bonked on the head in front of the ATM than I would be about catching Covid-19 from two people not standing 6 feet apart.


“I am also going a keep a list of every local business that opens when it should not, and I will never go to that store ever again. If if doesn’t value my life, I don’t value that business.“


Atta boy, get that knife out and cut your nose off, that’ll show’em! You can tell them how morally superior you are when you meet them on the bread line after our economy totally collapses.


Jerry, I have disagreed with you many times but, here, I applaud you.


Maybe you and Jerry can FaceTime or Zoom or something?


Let me guess Jerry, you are not in a financial hard spot because of the shutdown? YOU are the selfish one.