I am gobsmacked at the refusal of our state agencies and school districts to adapt their policies to the newer milder COVID variant and to acknowledge the minimal risk to healthy children.

My 5-year-old son got his first COVID shot the day after his 5th birthday and his second shot three weeks later. Well, screw him! A kid at his school (a preschool that is licensed like a day care) who was not sick took a COVID test and got a positive result. The same day, the Vikings stadium was packed.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines allow even adults who have recently tested positive for COVID to work if they are not sick, but my 5-year-old, who is not yet "fully vaccinated," must miss a week of school due to state Department of Health guidelines that have been made mandatory for day care licensing. After a long winter break, this means he will go to school only five days in a month.

Democrats love to say that they support families, child care and education, but now, placed in power in almost every state and local office, they are actively preventing my family from receiving consistent child care and education. I have been writing to elected officials for months to end the madness and have received only form responses along the lines of "That's not my job" or attempts to blame the Republicans, who are not currently administering any state agencies. How can these people ask to be re-elected, and how can anyone vote for the people implementing these policies?

Shari Albrecht, St. Paul

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I was recently diagnosed with a health condition, the treatment for which will leave me immunocompromised for a number of months. Given the surge of the omicron variant and its contagiousness, I am keenly interested in the percentage of health care staff who are vaccinated. Over the last several weeks there have been articles on the subject, specifically on Dec. 12 ("Employers hit pause on workplace mandates," front page) and more recently on Jan. 6 ("Mayo drops 700 over vaccinations") in which this same statistic was reported regarding Allina Health: "At Allina, 99.8% of workers either were vaccinated or received a medical or religious exemption from the health system's mandate."

When I asked my Allina provider whether the staff who worked with immunocompromised patients were vaccinated, I was not able to receive a simple yes or no answer, which was hugely disappointing to me. My suggestion: Instead of a meaningless statistic (99.8% of staff are vaccinated or received an exemption), it is much more important to know how many staff were vaccinated vs. the number given a medical or religious exemption, in order to assess the risk in seeking services at a particular Allina facility. As health care consumers we deserve no less.

Greg Larsen, Princeton, Minn.

Recent actions and plans raise the question of how accessible medical services are or will be to the people of the extended east metro region. Closure of Bethesda Hospital and St. Joseph's Hospital resulted in dispersal of cardiovascular services to the suburbs and dispersal of a well-trained care team. The transfer of Children's Minnesota pediatric ICU to Minneapolis ("Children's to shift ICU to its Mpls. campus," Dec. 31) will increase transport time, reduce system redundancy and result likely in dispersal and loss of staff.

Given the closures and pediatric ICU transfer it seems reasonable to have a public review and assessment of the impact on east metro health care access.

Such a review could be carried out by the Minnesota Department of Health. Some scrutiny should be carried out by Ramsey County and the city of St. Paul regarding the impact on access and the impact on EMS services. The Citizens League might be interested in investigating this matter.

A second concern that bears scrutiny regards the fate of philanthropic foundation donations to east metro hospitals for the enhancement of east metro health care. Millions of dollars have been donated over the years, and it seems there is an obligation to the donors to apply these funds in the east metro area given their source.

Dr. Kent S. Wilson, St. Paul

The writer served as chief of surgery at St. Joseph's in 1978 and chief of staff at Children's in 1987.

The Star Tribune business section on Monday reported Target posting double-digit sales growth in late 2021 and its CEO Brian Cornell being honored as a retail visionary ("For Target's leader, it is all about team"). In explaining Target's success, Cornell went on at some length about such things as embracing a culture of care and growth and winning together. He expressed other platitudes as reasons also for big revenue gains.

However, nowhere did he mention the American businesses that were shut down by government mandate during the pandemic while his company was allowed to go on operating. Think of all the retail that was funneled to Target and a few others like Target while independents and mom-and-pops were closed — some for good.

Brian Cornell says it's all about team. No, it isn't; that's not the whole story.

Earl Faulkner Sr., Edina

The ineffective response to the recent spate of carjackings, robberies and other violent crime points to the insanity of expecting a different outcome while using the same failed methods ("Metrowide coalition joins forces on crime," Jan. 11). The immediate issue for the public is removal of the perpetrators from the streets. This is the job of law enforcement. No matter the age of the suspects these people need to be arrested and held in detention so they do not return to the streets to repeat the behavior. The parents of these children need to be located and interviewed to determine if they are capable of intervening on behalf of their children. If not, then the young people should be remanded to a structured living arrangement that provides secure accommodations, training and supervision.

This is not punishment; it is behavior modification and is the only way to change the trajectory of behavior that is detrimental to the perpetrators and the rest of us. This program will cost money, lots of money. It may also require changes to state laws. Prosecutors need flexibility and valid alternatives to prison for youthful offenders. Parents need help with income, child care, housing and health issues.

If taxpayers want security, they need to step up and fund a process that goes beyond the punitive and destructive retaliation that is the current model. We are living the alternative, which, if you ask the crime victims, mayors and police, is not working.

George Hutchinson, Minneapolis

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Regarding the recent crime surge, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi had this to say: "What we really need to start doing is working together to understand the complexity of the problem."

I have a question for Choi. When you stand at the edge of your driveway after a snowfall, and you're holding a shovel, do you "work to understand the complexity of the problem," or do you start digging? Resolving this crime surge is not complex. Bad people do bad things. Police arrest them. You prosecute them to the full extent of the law so that judges can put them in jail where they — and this is the most important part — can't commit more crimes. Do your job, Mr. Choi.

Ryan Sheahan, Roseville

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