Dear TLS Staff,
As the coronavirus pandemic appears to b”h be winding down, I felt it was incumbent on me to write to “The Scoop” in order to express my gratitude for what you have provided for me over the last two months. When the coronavirus first began spreading in our neck of the woods, I was gripped by fear.
What do I do? How will I get the things I need for my home? How do I keep my parents safe? How do I make sure my kids aren’t going meshuga? And then someone directed me to The Lakewood Scoop site.
Originally, I thought that you would only be covering “hot” items like the number of new cases, deaths, and so on, and I was wondering whether taking a look at your site would make me feel better or worse. As I only recently moved to Lakewood, I’d never seen the scoop website and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, instead of focusing on difficult to swallow stories, your site was serving as a communal resource, providing a massive amount of useful, actionable information that I would have never been able to get without you. Your team at TLS somehow managed to keep their fingers on the pulse of what was going on, while keeping their cool and committed to giving over only factual information in a calm, non-hysterical manner. With the entire Lakewood community on edge, the service you provided was never more crucial.
If I may offer a minor critique, I do think that not reporting daily on the number of new cases and deaths in Lakewood may have led some to believe that the situation was not as serious as it was, and perhaps some people flaunted the lockdown rules as a result. I understand that you’re straddling the line between telling people what they need to know while also not trying to send them into a panic, but that’s just my take on the matter.
In closing, I want to wish you and the team much continued hatzlacha. And I hope you recognize how helpful your site was throughout this crisis.
Sincerely,
A Lakewood resident.
Both points are very well made. Thank you to the Scoop for keeping us informed with the latest developments around town during the pandemic. I also think that a lot of the carelessness with the masks indoors and the social distancing indoors and outdoors has to do with the lack of factual data. Please report new cases on a daily basis so that we’re all safer in the face of the predicted second wave R”L. Thank you!
Since testing only opened recently a lot of new cases are really old cases which were only tested now. As well each time a person donates plasma they are retested and their test is entered as a new cases. Also many ppl are dying from many other ailments, yet bec they may have antibodies to coronavirus or testing positive and therefore their deaths are being listed as corona deaths. So keep in mind at this point the numbers are not accurate at all.
Aha. Thank you for your valuable information about the new cases in Lakewood, no doubt highly researched and well sourced. May I ask what your source is? It’s a trifling thing, that Hatzalah and all the doctors disagree… certainly you know best.