Look before you leap

Look before you leap is prudent, so is intelligent analysis before doing anything of consequence, something not being done by Trump regarding COVID-19 and what it could mean for America if he opens up the country too soon. 

President Trump says he wants the United States “raring to go” in two and a half weeks, on Easter, with “packed churches all over our country.” He and many other political conservatives suggest that we are responding to something like the flu with remedies that may be more devastating than the disease.

To this end, The NYTimes has created an interactive chart showing how the numbers play out in terms of people getting infected based on input by researchers who know their stuff regarding pandemics and the viral agents that drive them. 

These numbers offer a false precision, for we don’t understand Covid-19 well enough to model it exactly. But they do suggest the point that epidemiologists are making: For all the yearning for a return to normalcy, that is risky so long as a virus is raging and we are unprotected.

“Anyone advising the end of social distancing now needs to fully understand what the country will look like if we do that,” cautioned Dr. Tom Inglesby, a health security expert at Johns Hopkins University. “Covid would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, and could kill potentially millions in the year ahead, with huge social and economic impact.”

Look before you leap sounds smart to me don't you think?

Addendum: Another must-read regarding the virus ... Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance depicts in greater detail why Look before you leap is more than just apt. 

Summary of the article: Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society, saving millions of lives along the way. If we don’t take these measures, tens of millions will be infected, many will die, along with anybody else that requires intensive care, because the healthcare system will have collapsed.

Any questions?