The leading causes of death in the United States are heart disease and cancer. Over 600,000 people a year die of heart disease and nearly the same number from cancer. These incidents occur over the course of a year. They don’t show up in the emergency room all at once. Medical staff are not at risk of contracting heart disease or cancer from their patients.

This coronavirus is highly contagious, easily transmitted and deadly. The risk of not containing it is that it will overwhelm our health care system. Without adequate protection, our doctors, nurses, EMTs and other caregivers will be at risk. If we lose a significant number of these health care providers to the virus, our entire health care system could collapse.

It’s possible to open our economies and contain the virus at the same time, but protesting and bringing guns into capitol buildings serves only to sow chaos.

What we need is a concerted, coordinated federal effort to accelerate and expand our capabilities to test, track and protect. Widespread, accessible, timely testing and tracking can lead to more people being able to move about more freely and sooner. Adequate supplies of protective gear will ensure the safety of our indispensable health care providers.

This will give businesses the confidence that they can open safely. The effort needs to be immediate, and we need to demand that our representatives at every level of government put their full force behind it. Otherwise, we’ll be left with the chaos.

Julia Head

Camden

Copy the Story Link