Thread by @medicalaxioms

Before I decide someone is an idiot, I often actually follow through and really consider their idea, approach, or solution to a problem. Come along with me while we examine #OPENAMERICANOW.
1/

First of all, people like to talk tougher than they are and most people are liars. So they say stuff like “masks are for sissies” but if you watch them they only spend 20 minutes down at the capitol before running to the car and bathing in hand sanitizer. 2/

Some are actually going to go around a’hugging and a’kissing every stranger they meet in the next few weeks.

And what of it? 3/

Well, let’s use science like people with brains do.

Some of them, possibly even the majority depending on the circumstances, will contract the infection.

But many will not. Those well people will be “right.” 4/

Among those that contract the #COVID19, some will be asymptomatic. They will also be “right.”

Some will get sick and recover easily.

Some will get pretty sick and recover with some effort.

All of these people will also be “right.” 5/

Smarty, you and I both know I am missing a big chunk of the result of increasing cases of this disease—spread to others.

Here’s the fact though. Killing someone else with COVID doesn’t really leave a mark. People will always say, “They didn’t get it from me.” 6/

The cult of personal irresponsibility is pervasive in the US. Yes, even people who kill their own loved ones won’t admit of accept their role in that. It’s just the culture we live in. 🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️

So few of these people will admit they were wrong. 7/

Lastly, it’s even logical to have some nihilism. The US public health plan for #covid19 is truly a bridge to nowhere. We haven’t done much with the time we have paid dearly for. We haven’t instituted massive testing or contact tracing. 8/

We’ve flattened the curve and wasted the flat. We’ve avoided the peak to have a peak later. We’ve accepted on a federal level the use of lives to grind through the natural history of this disease.

Whether we “open up” in a week or 6 months, it will be about the same. 9/

The result of this thought experiment for me is this: In the country that we have with the leadership that we have and the priorities that we have & the decisions that we’ve made so far, most people that resume normal life soon will escape unscathed.

That’s actual science. 10/

The ones that don’t will fall into 2 main categories

1. Dead and unlikely to change their opinion and admit they were wrong
2. Alive, permanently or temporarily injured, and unlikely to change their opinion and admit they were wrong. 11/

Humans love to play the odds and the odds are actually pretty good on this one. Most of the people who want to #ReOpenAmerica are not going to get sick and are not going to have to take care of the sick ones.

They will never even see them. 12/

In my assessment, they aren’t “stupid.” They are playing some good odds. I can see the gamble. I’d take those odds.

If something about a) the disease or b) the USA was likely to be different in a few months than it is today, then I might see the wager differently. 13/

Fact is, nothing is going to be different. Not medicines. Not ventilators. Not a vaccine. Not a plan to test and quarantine stick people.

None of that is going to be different. 14/

Our plan has not been all bad so far. We have collectively sacrificed gotten benefit out of it. We mostly avoided Lombardy- and Madrid- and Wuhan-level overruns of local hospitals. That was good. 15/

We got some PPE and expertise that was needed. That was good.
16/

Unless you see it differently than me, what lies ahead in the US is inevitable. We can put it off longer or start sacrificing people to the Gods of Bad Judgment now.

It’s not my idea but I don’t see “us” in the US developing any better plan in the last 6 weeks. 17/

I wish it was different and it didn’t have to be like this but here we are and we are only going toward another peak bigger and badder than the one we have been in.

It is as sure as the sun is setting over the Rocky Mountains outside my window. 18/

I’m willing to hear you if you have a different take. If you see a different way out. Please share it.

Meanwhile I am getting my head around what is coming and what it’s going to mean for us in healthcare, my friends, and family. 19/

It will be like the scene in the #sevensamurai when the bandits finally attack the farmers. All the preparation is behind them. The odds are already set.

Now the 7 must use all their skills and simply try not to die.

While accepting that death is a possible outcome.