Covid-19 or Coronavirus is real and it's here. It's been on American soil since AT LEAST mid- to late January. The time for action is yesterday but there is still time to make sure that our actions don't lead to an Italy-like scenario where the healthcare system is completely overwhelmed.
The problem now – even with Americans taking actions like social distancing, as many people as possible working from home, school and colleges shut down and more – is that it's already too late. We can see that in New York, where they are poised to run out of ICU beds this week, that the time to act was not March but instead January.
Imagine if we had acted sooner and had six additional weeks to prepare. Six more weeks of producing N95 masks. Six more weeks to ramp up production of COVID-19 testing kits. Six more weeks to produce PPE for nurses, doctors and other medical professionals. Six more weeks to track cases as they popped up in the earliest stages of spreading.
But instead, here we are completely fucked. An economy in shambles, hospitals overflowing. Doctors and nurses breaking down from being severely overworked. A president who is now actively considering lifting recommendations regarding sheltering in place and social distancing to get the economy back on track and willing to sacrifice potentially millions of our nation's senior citizens to save the economy.
In case you hadn't noticed, the damage is done. The economy is globally dependent and no matter what happens in America, we are influenced by Europe, Asia, and South America. When China and other Asian countries shut down, the ripple effects were almost instantaneous in America. We are facing, or already in, a true crisis. 99.9% of people alive today have never witnessed anything like this. We can get through this with creative thinking and smart actions but with the president that the United States has, we aren't going to see either of those.
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