In response to comments made in the Aug. 20 Record-Bee, it seems the mayor of Lakeport is either deliberately or unintentionally deceitful and/or ignorant despite his alleged UCLA pre-med studies.

Pretty much everything he says is well-worn anti-vaxxer palaver.

First, masks are not designed or intended to filter out individual virus particles. Rather they effectively prevent the spread of aerosol-sized droplets in the range of one to five microns that are present in exhaled breath and is how COVID-19 is generally transmitted. And they certainly would capture sneeze-sized droplets. So if you care about yourself and others, wear a mask when appropriate, like when four people are standing behind the counter of a small, poorly ventilated meat market.

As far as "the vaccine has already killed well over 12,000 according to VAERS." Tucker Carlson might say so and maybe our mayor believes it, but that doesn't make it true.

Anti-vaccine advocates are once again falsely citing the VAERS database, and have for decades, to further their misinformation campaign.

Hey, let's not be like Alabama, with the lowest percentage of vaccinated people in the country and the lowest number of I.C.U. beds ... there are none.

Remember smallpox? How about polio? How about rabies? No? I wonder why?

Finally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would say 656,393 Americans were killed by a “total hoax.”

Andrew Tritchler lives in Lakeport, California.