Why are they closing schools, cancelling March madness, stopping events? Is it because there is a lot of virus out there and we want to prevent the spread?
The answer is no- it won’t stop the spread of COVID19, that virus will march through the United States like Sherman’s army marched through the south. It will cause destruction in 20 percent of the population, killing 3-4% even with closing schools, even with stopping sporting events, even with social distancing.
The reason we are doing that is to prevent SURGES of patients who are ill with COVID19 from overwhelming our hospital system. Take my hospital – we have about 20 ICU beds – and over half of them are filled at any given time. If there are 100 new COVID19 cases from a major event then there will be 20 people to go to that ICU and our hospital will be beyond its capacity.
The idea of flattening the curve – the idea of partial quarantine is as old as 1918 – and it WILL NOT stop you from getting sick, but it will keep your hospital from being overcome with so many sick people that we have to choose who to live and who will die. No doctor likes being in that position.
The idea of stopping foreign travel is no longer viable, the genie is out of the bottle. We will have this epidemic and most of you will not know.
The good news: the worst will happen over a two week period then it will stop. If we are lucky we can put it off until we get more sunlight and heat – and that will greatly decrease viral load. We hope to buy time for a vaccine or an anti-viral or both. Until then – we are in the worst of the Hollywood movie- it is coming.
