To the Editor:

I have lived in Rhode Island for 48 years. I considered moving to another location after finishing Graduate School when my classmates were landing positions that paid 20% to 50% more than I could earn here in the smallest state, but I stayed because I love swimming and fishing in the Bay and the Ocean as well as skiing in the mountains to the north. After some time I started my own business and ran 3 different Science and Engineering firms over more than 35 years. My wife and I saw friends leaving the state to go to places where winters are warmer, with lower taxes and less political drama, but again we stayed because we were raising a family here and this is where we have roots in both our personal and business lives. When we both retired recently we evaluated several possible locations as a new home, but again decided that even though it costs us a premium to stay in RI this is where we have roots and we will stay here.

After these many years the total incompetence of the RI health system will finally push us to a new location. We are sick of staying here and paying high taxes to get very poor health decisions and a totally botched roll-out of the COVID vaccine. RI is near the bottom of the pack in vaccine utilization rate and that vaccine that was prioritized was given to convicted criminals rather than to our most vulnerable elderly population. My wife and I are both over 65 and we have many friends in Florida who have ALL received their vaccines. We have a daughter and a son in NY who have their vaccines scheduled and we have a daughter-in-law in California who has already received her vaccine. We are told by our City that we will not even be eligible to receive a vaccine for another 8 weeks and then it could be 8 to 12 weeks of backlog.

I can’t even express my feelings about this situation. At a time in my life when I expected to be traveling both in the US and internationally we cancelled all travel plans and now don’t even consider any travel possibilities while our friends in other states are planning their travel for later this year. By staying in RI I have put my wife and myself at increased health risk due to the high rate of COVID infection here. We have put our lives on hold longer than necessary because we are living in a state with one of the worst infection rates and with nearly the worst vaccine utilization rate in the country. It is time to leave this beautiful state with the worst political system that I can imagine for one of the United States of America. It is time to leave those well-known fishing spots and beaches to swim only to come back as a visitor. I wish our state leaders could do something right for a change, but alas no they can’t. WHY???

Rich Hittinger

Warwick