Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

As a volunteer emergency medical technician and firefighter with over 30 years of experience, I was horrified to read in the business section of the Minnesota Star Tribune the report that well-known issues with pulse oximetry for people of color had led to increased deaths due to lack of treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic (“Accuracy at heart of device debate,” Jan. 12). When my fire department ambulance service was first trained on pulse oximetry in 2005, we were told that it didn’t work well with polished nails or with people who had very dark skin. This was a result, we were told, of how the devices measured oxygen in the blood. We were trained to be aware of this flaw and assumed that adjustments would be made.

Now I read that during the COVID pandemic these same basic devices, with their known flawed readings for people of color, were used to deny medication and oxygen to patients of color, sometimes leading to premature death. When the differential death rates were first published, “lifestyle” was blamed. When will we acknowledge the racism of our medical system, and take action that is not profit-based, to fix these problems? That this story appeared in the business section and not on the front page, is even more disgusting. We need to fix this.

Peter Stebinger, Minneapolis

The writer is a volunteer EMT and firefighter.

The commentary by Andy Brehm in the Jan. 16 paper regarding the recent wildfires in California was uninformed, counterproductive and insulting to the thousands of firefighters who are putting their lives in harm’s way to protect people and property (“Climate change didn’t cause the Los Angeles wildfires. Government incompetence did,” Strib Voices). In his commentary he claims that “the severity of the Los Angeles’ wildfires was primarily due to unprepared and dysfunctional local and state California government.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The severity of these fires is due primarily to fire weather conditions and fuel moisture levels that make any current or former firefighter (such as myself) cringe in fear. Key fire weather factors include: air temperature, humidity, 1-, 10-, and 100-hour fuel moisture levels, and finally and most critically, wind speed and direction. The most recent California fires were fed by fire weather conditions that pinned the needle in each of these factors: bone-dry fuels, desert-like humidity, unseasonably warm temperatures and hurricane-force winds; which, among other things, will keep your air tankers and helicopters grounded.