Ten Weeks to Crush the Curve | NEJM nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… Am I irritable, or was this article written by someone who lives in a fantasy universe?
Recommendation 1. "Establish unified command." "The President should surprise his critics ... " by replacing himself with someone competent. Not gonna happen. 2. "Make millions of diagnostic tests available." How? Where do the test kits, swabs, reagents come from?
3. "Supply health workers with PPE and equip hospitals to care for a surge in severely ill patients." Yes, of course. Why didn't anyone think of that. If we click our heels three times and say "there's nothing better than a ventilator," they'll appear.
4. "Differentiate the population into five groups and treat accordingly." "Convert now-empty hotels into quarantine centers to house those who have been exposed." I'll bet our highly-armed, clinically-paranoid population will trot into those like little lambs.
He adds as an afterthought that this "requires development, validation, and deployment of antibody-based tests." Okay! I'll take care of that, since it sounds easy. 5. "Inspire and mobilize the public." Because the US public is famously united.
"In this all-out effort, everyone has a part to play and virtually everyone is willing." I guess this comes after the president has replaced himself with someone competent.
"The U.S. Postal Service and willing private companies can join to deliver surgical masks and hand sanitizer to every American household." Because the problem is that there's tons of masks and sanitizer, but no postal service? What's the thinking, here?
6. "Learn while doing through real-time, fundamental research." As opposed to what? Everyone capable of learning and researching is already doing nothing but learning and researching.
Then all we need is "A safe and effective vaccine" and a "Reinvigorat[ed] public health infrastructure," and boom--we're done! In ten weeks. "If we act immediately, we can make the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2020, the day America declares victory over the coronavirus."
I don't think I'm just irritable. This is the lead editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, and this is the author: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_V.… -- he can't *possibly* be unaware why this isn't going to happen, so what's this supposed to mean?
