No Words

No words from me today, when my governor is in self-quarantine, my lieutenant governor's brother has died of COVID-19, and one my senators' husbands has been hospitalized with it.

Instead, I'm linking to this interview with Michael Osterholm, Minnesota's former state epidemiologist, who's internationally known in the field. When asked why it was so hard for governments and everyday people to take the risk of the coronavirus seriously, he answered like this:

...we tend to lack creative imagination unless it’s something about a video game or a movie. None of this was really that difficult. It was pretty straightforward right in front of us. People who knew health care knew that health care [had been] carved down to the bone for which there was no resiliency of any substantial nature, no excess capacity, no monies to stockpile large volumes of protective equipment.

[There has been] no real understanding of the vulnerability of this country outsourcing all of its drug supply manufacturing to places like China. And when you don’t understand all that, or elect to neglect it, it’s easy to say another day went by and nothing happened.

I was asked often, what’s the chance of this really happening? I would always reply back, “It is going to happen. I just don’t know if it’s going to be on my watch.”

I confess that, despite that beginning to the interview, I have not had time to read the whole thing myself, but I will any minute. And here's a personal dispatch from my sister in central New York.

She's the CFO of a county hospital, located in the county seat of a rural area. They have been commanded by the state to make twice as much room for incoming patients but given no money to do it, and no equipment or supplies.And on April 1, the state is going to cut Medicaid reimbursement rates statewide. Meanwhile, their ER is suddenly about one-third as full as it was two weeks ago because people are staying away, probably fearing they will catch the virus there, and the hospital's rooms are occupied about two-thirds of average. (I'm not sure if they have been told to cancel "elective" surgery, or if that's just the New York City area.)

In some ways, it sounds just like the ocean going out right before a tsunami hits.

Here's what's coming in Minnesota. See what's coming in your state here. I don't know why my now-quarantined governor hasn't ordered us to stay the F home.


March 25 is Wednesday (for posterity, today is Monday).
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Okay, so I was mistaken about the No Words from me. I guess I wrote a few words.