The late arrival White House response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Monday that she is “very worried about every city in the United States” and projects 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths as a best-case scenario.
An article from NBC quoted Birx who said “the projections by Dr. Anthony Fauci that U.S. deaths could range from 1.6 million to 2.2 million is a worst-case scenario if the country did “nothing” to contain the outbreak, but said even “if we do things almost perfectly,” she still predicts up to 200,000 U.S. deaths.
The question that needs to be asked is did we do this right? Why didn’t our government protect us? What could have prevented this outbreak from happening? The one thing I hate about making this outbreak political is that everyone points fingers first before they find a solution.
First off, there is no evidence of an uptick in domestic travel, but foreign tourism to the United States is projected to keep declining through the next few months, with the potential to inflict even more harm to the American economy. Even Trump’s favorite metric, the stock market, had its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis last month. The global economy has also taken a massive hit in recent weeks.
Most businesses are not prepared medically and financially to deal with a mass outbreak; our government is currently taking austerity measures and our hospital. Our schools are currently struggling to conserve money and our teachers and administrators face more salary cuts. If the school and the government cannot even pay the current staff, the schools and the government are not financially ready for the coronavirus.
An article written by the New York Times said, “All in all, I do not think people are taking this as seriously as it is. If the mortality rate is 2% and a school has 1000 people, then about 20 people will die due to the coronavirus. Over the broad spectrum, if 2% of everyone on Earth dies (world population of 8 billion), then 160,000,000 160 million people will die.”
What are the upcoming stages for us during these hard times? Stay tuned…
Sources:
Network, T. L. (2020, March 5). What Students Are Saying About the Coronavirus. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-the-coronavirus.html
Kesslen, B. (2020, March 30). Dr. Birx predicts up to 200,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths ‘if we do things almost perfectly’. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr-deborah-birx-predicts-200-000-deaths-if-we-do-n1171876
Sy Barnes 