Have we learned anything from 4 centuries of plagues?

History repeats itself. Plagues have wiped out millions of people every 100 years for 4 centuries. That’s why we trust facts and statistics. When we aren’t testing our 350 million US citizens, yet the government is talking about lifting the shelter-in-place orders based on economics and not the status of COVID-19, I am outraged and disillusioned.

My daughter Nicole (ER doc) just texted this to me:

“If the first wave of the Spanish Flu killed 3-5 million but the second wave killed 20-50 million, how are we going to handle the second wave?”

I told her that she shouldn’t be a hero when protestors are heading back to work, taking mass transportation, and ignoring the shelter-in-place orders. My friends and I have made 300 3-layered cloth masks with MERV-14 filters and 300 face shields to give every frontline worker in the Emergency Dept at her hospital the personal protection they can use when the second wave hits the Bay Area.

It sickens me to know that come fall 2020, my daughter and all of the healthcare workers in the United States and the world will face the second wave of this pandemic that will overwhelm them and probably kill 20-50 million people.

Why?

Because short-sighted people who run the government at the federal level and in many states don’t understand that by lifting the shelter-in-place order to get people back to work again BEFORE we’ve analyzed the spread of the virus and antibodies, we may experience an overwhelming resurgence of the coronavirus that will topple our economy and kill over 100 times more people in the process.

We need to listen to the medical professionals and stop listening to the politicians. Hunker down, simplify your life, and then come out to play and work when the coronavirus is contained and controlled.