This CNN article is one of many in the media that is finally coming to terms with the notion that the struggle against COVID-19 will be lengthy:
(CNN)Nearly two months since the first US coronavirus case, the federal government is now preparing for a pandemic that could last up to 18 months or longer and “include multiple waves of illness,” a report obtained by CNN shows.
Hospitals have already sounded the alarm on quickly vanishing supplies as the outbreak in the US shows no signs of slowing — in just 24 hours, cases soared by more than 40%.
The US government announced this week it would help make up for potential medical supply shortages and deploy two hospital ships to help increase medical capacity.
Slowly but surely I believe they will come around to the realization that far from being like the plague, which killed 30% or more of Europe’s population in the 14th century, it’s more like another, more deadly flu. I believe it will be around forever from now on, possibly seasonal but possibly not.
I also don’t believe that in the absence of a willingness to rally scarce resources to where they are most needed testing will be that useful. On a per case basis how does testing change how medical professionals deal with the patient? I don’t think it does at all. I think that it’s too late for containment or even mitigation and has been since the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 arrived in the United States from China in late January.
Is it time for this crisis’s version of the “advisory committee on uranium†– staff it with multidisciplinary field of experts on bureaucracy, mathematics, manufacturing, medicine, to look at options – including any “out of the box†options.
I keep wondering, with 100,000 worldwide seasonal flu deaths so far this year, would our own CDC have picked this up by now as something different if the Chinese hadn’t.