By Steven Weiss, M.D., for the Chippewa Valley Post
On Wednesday (Mar. 11), the World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus a pandemic.
On the same day, Mayo-Northwest Wisconsin, where I work as an internist, announced it is transitioning to virtual meetings for any group exceeding 20 people.
In Italy, the hardest hit nation outside of China, the death toll from the virus rose from 631 to 827 in a day, while cases increased by over 2,000 to 12,462. In an unprecedented move, the prime minister has locked down all of the country’s 60 million inhabitants.
‘The war has . . . exploded’
According to Daniele Macchini, a physician treating patients close to Milan, near the epicenter of the outbreak, “The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night.
“Cases are multiplying, we have a rate of 15 to 20 admissions per day all for the same reason. We are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.”
In the United States, where as of Mar. 11 the virus has been found in 39 states and the District of Columbia, hospitals aren’t prepared for such an onslaught (though they will need to be), thanks in part to substandard work against the virus in the U.S. thus far.
WHO test shunned in U.S.
Though the WHO had developed a test for the virus early on in the epidemic, the U.S. government shunned it in favor of having the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come up with its own test, one that was initially fraught with inaccuracy.
Physicians were also limited as to who they could test. Until Mar. 9, Wisconsin doctors had to call Madison to obtain permission before testing.
As a result, only some 5,000 people in the U.S. have been tested, compared to nearly 200,000, for example, in South Korea. Confirmed cases in the U.S. have passed 1,200, and deaths exceed 30. But because so few people have been tested, we have little idea about the true extent of the epidemic.
Worst is still ahead
Things will get worse before they get better, and the Trump Administration and its media allies are partly to blame. Just this week, the President said, “I think the U.S. has done a very good job on testing,” which is in stark contrast to the facts. Last week, he had suggested that infected patients could still go to work and recover.
Rush Limbaugh has said that the virus “is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. Yeah, I’m dead right about this. The coronavirus is the common cold.”
The common cold doesn’t spread throughout a nursing home, killing 19 of its residents, as has happened in Kirkland, WA.
In Hubei Province, China, tens of millions have been confined to their homes, quarantined under penalty of death, an edict enforced by the military. Though draconian, it seems to have helped.
Democracy limits control options
In a democracy, we don’t have that luxury. Policies to shut down schools, cancel events, and implement limited quarantines have come from a hodgepodge of local, state, and private initiatives, without federal coordination, something the President is not politically predisposed to do.
His decision to limit travel from Europe, while consistent with his xenophobia, will do little to stem coronavirus’s tide. In contrast, steps taken to limit the spread of the virus in two of the country’s hardest hit regions, the Seattle area and Westchester County, New York, have been much less rigorous than those in northern Italy at a comparable stage of the epidemic there.
The other night, eating with friends and family at a local restaurant, an acquaintance shared his perspective on the virus. “Diarrhea kills more people than that!” he laughed. Earlier Wednesday, at an Eau Claire small business, a client told the manager, “I don’t care what they say, I’m gonna shake your hand!”
To repurpose FDR’s words, although we should fear fear itself, we need to take coronavirus seriously.
If we had competent national leadership, and if the right-wing media told the truth, we’d still be in for a tough slog. Unfortunately, neither of these hypotheses hold, and the cost in lives and suffering will be worse than it should have been.
Steven Weiss has practiced internal medicine in Eau Claire for more than 30 years. He attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and had residencies at the Universities of Kentucky and Hawaii.
NOTE: A slightly updated version of this Mar. 12 column was published in the Leader-Telegram on Mar. 18.