Monday, March 16, 2020
I finally heard the words that make all the coronavirus isolation make sense last night. I understood the flattening of the curve rationale already. Isolation can reduce the chances our medical system will be overloaded. The infected will receive far better care if we have 100,000 patients being treated spread out across eight weeks than 100,000 people needing treatment all in the same week. We do not want to need to ration medical care. I could be one of those denied treatment because I have a terminal diagnosis.
I understood the reason leaders have been declaring states of emergency across the country. A state of emergency enables an area to receive federal emergency funds. A state of emergency enables an area to relax restrictions such as making it possible for doctors to conduct virtual appointments and mental health professionals to practice telephone sessions, and still get paid. A state of emergency is not a reason to panic, it is a sensible choice.
The part I did not realize, until last night, was the small number of people required to lose containment of a virus. When one percent of a population gets infected, a virus is nearly impossible to stop. That is only slightly more than 3 million people in the United States. I concede that a virus might spread less quickly in a rural area’ however, 80 percent of people in the United States live in urban areas. If this virus is as contagious as the reports from China indicate, three million people could be infected in a few weeks.
Containment is critical. Hospitals will be overwhelmed if only a few hundred thousand people become infected. Even if merely 25 percent of infected people have symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization, that is 75,000 patient beds, most in intensive care units. There are approximately 725,000 hospital beds across the United States. More than 60 percent, or 435,000, are occupied on any given day. The remaining less than 290,000 beds are spread across the entire country.
New York has already reported more than 500 infected people. In Colorado, we have just a few, but the numbers grow each day. How long before New York has 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 infected people? If we do not stay at home, nearly nine million people in New York City could get infected. If only one percent of New York City residents die, it would be almost 90,000 people. There are not that many hospital beds in the entire country. The numbers China has reported show a higher percentage of deaths than one percent. Nearly 60,000 people could die in the state of Colorado if this virus is not contained. The dead could include my friends and family. The dead could include me. I am not okay with that scenario.
I know many people in rural areas think they are safe, and they probably are safer than people in urban areas, in the short term. I was raised in a rural area and I interacted with many people daily. The Internet has probably cut down on a lot of social interaction in rural areas too, but we all went to school, played sports, went to the town library, playground, grocery store, and etcetera. Residents of our town worked in all the nearby towns. When chicken pox hit one kid, every child in the area who had not contracted it yet, was sick. The coronavirus will spread the same way, with much deadlier consequences.
As more closures come, and they will, I will accept them as what we need to do as a collective to protect the most vulnerable among us. Survival of the fittest can only go so far. Some influential people think we should let the virus kill the susceptible population and their followers are repeating those words. Population control, they say. I wonder if they would change their mind if it was their grandparent, child or sibling who got sick?
My piece of advice to you is to listen to your conscience. Personally, I am not willing to let more than three million people die so I can keep my child in school or take a ski trip.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.
I finally heard the words that make all the coronavirus isolation make sense last night. I understood the flattening of the curve rationale already. Isolation can reduce the chances our medical system will be overloaded. The infected will receive far better care if we have 100,000 patients being treated spread out across eight weeks than 100,000 people needing treatment all in the same week. We do not want to need to ration medical care. I could be one of those denied treatment because I have a terminal diagnosis.
I understood the reason leaders have been declaring states of emergency across the country. A state of emergency enables an area to receive federal emergency funds. A state of emergency enables an area to relax restrictions such as making it possible for doctors to conduct virtual appointments and mental health professionals to practice telephone sessions, and still get paid. A state of emergency is not a reason to panic, it is a sensible choice.
The part I did not realize, until last night, was the small number of people required to lose containment of a virus. When one percent of a population gets infected, a virus is nearly impossible to stop. That is only slightly more than 3 million people in the United States. I concede that a virus might spread less quickly in a rural area’ however, 80 percent of people in the United States live in urban areas. If this virus is as contagious as the reports from China indicate, three million people could be infected in a few weeks.
Containment is critical. Hospitals will be overwhelmed if only a few hundred thousand people become infected. Even if merely 25 percent of infected people have symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization, that is 75,000 patient beds, most in intensive care units. There are approximately 725,000 hospital beds across the United States. More than 60 percent, or 435,000, are occupied on any given day. The remaining less than 290,000 beds are spread across the entire country.
New York has already reported more than 500 infected people. In Colorado, we have just a few, but the numbers grow each day. How long before New York has 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 infected people? If we do not stay at home, nearly nine million people in New York City could get infected. If only one percent of New York City residents die, it would be almost 90,000 people. There are not that many hospital beds in the entire country. The numbers China has reported show a higher percentage of deaths than one percent. Nearly 60,000 people could die in the state of Colorado if this virus is not contained. The dead could include my friends and family. The dead could include me. I am not okay with that scenario.
I know many people in rural areas think they are safe, and they probably are safer than people in urban areas, in the short term. I was raised in a rural area and I interacted with many people daily. The Internet has probably cut down on a lot of social interaction in rural areas too, but we all went to school, played sports, went to the town library, playground, grocery store, and etcetera. Residents of our town worked in all the nearby towns. When chicken pox hit one kid, every child in the area who had not contracted it yet, was sick. The coronavirus will spread the same way, with much deadlier consequences.
As more closures come, and they will, I will accept them as what we need to do as a collective to protect the most vulnerable among us. Survival of the fittest can only go so far. Some influential people think we should let the virus kill the susceptible population and their followers are repeating those words. Population control, they say. I wonder if they would change their mind if it was their grandparent, child or sibling who got sick?
My piece of advice to you is to listen to your conscience. Personally, I am not willing to let more than three million people die so I can keep my child in school or take a ski trip.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.