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our situation is dire and our medical capacity is so overstretched. The USNS Comfort won’t be treating COVID-19 patients – it will be tending to all of the other medical emergencies that overwhelmed civilian hospitals simply can’t handle. I’ve been speaking to doctors – some I’ve known for many years – about what they’ve been seeing on the front lines and what this whole country is now up against. One told me that patients often show up to the E.R. as walk-ins and within hours are intubated, breathing only with the assistance of ventilators. The speed with which COVID-19 is able to incapacitate – and tragically kill – particularly those who are in older, more vulnerable categories has been shocking medical professionals who watch it happen. Another doctor friend I spoke to at one of the major hospitals in Brooklyn told me that “it feels like a war zone” in the various ICU wards. He said that he is deeply concerned about the health and morale of his medical staff, especially the nurses who spend the most time with patients and could therefore be even more susceptible to this contagious respiratory disease. There are no easy answers. Clearly, the global medical community is still learning a lot about the virus. Public health authorities across the board have failed to anticipate this pandemic and have made egregious errors as it was rising. Everyone is playing catch-up against this scourge.
We know there will be a tomorrow, and this too shall pass – but we need to have some sense of what that tomorrow will look like.
As someone living under quarantine for weeks now, I can tell you that in this city, we just want to know when this will end. Even during what may be the worst of this health crisis, planning for the future feels urgent. We know there will be a tomorrow, and this too shall pass – but we need to have some sense of what that tomorrow will look like. The virus isn’t the only major threat. As we are waiting for coronavirus deaths to peak nationally, we are also beginning to get a glimpse of what freezing the world’s largest economy in place will do... A Federal Reserve economist recently predicted there will be almost 47 million Americans unemployed by the second quarter, with an unemployment rate of more than 30%. That is an all-too-real disaster on its own. We are fighting off a global pandemic and heading toward a recession. We need to find a way through this, protecting as many lives as possible along the way, so we can re-establish that most precious of human conditions: normalcy. Never before has the average and the mundane sounded so precious.
American Consequences
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