Op-Ed: Will Memorial Day 2020 be remembered as the holiday when COVID-19 got the upper hand? (via latimesopinion)
We may have the reason to remember Memorial Day 2020 as the holiday when COVID-19 exploded. Looking around the country over the weekend, there was little evidence that people were making the sacrifices needed to save their own lives and those of their friends and family.
First the good news: On March 30, New Jersey reported 3,250 new cases of COVID-19 to New York’s 9,000. No one who lives in Manhattan, as I do, will forget that day of constant sirens. On Saturday, two months later, the number of new cases in New Jersey was 1,050, down about 60% InBecause of social distancing and mask wearing, which we now know work, the epidemic in both places, while far from over, is waning.
Do these people remember that so far nearly 100,000 Americans have died? And that figure doesn’t even count the seriously ill. About 20% of those who get the virus get very, very sick. When you ask those survivors to talk about what they went through, it’s an alarming picture.They describe exquisite pain while acutely ill and long-term consequences after the virus has run its course. Some will be on kidney dialysis for the rest of their lives.
I do not think making a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 will be as difficult as for AIDS, but neither is it a “slam dunk” that a vaccine will come to our rescue. Why? For one thing, the ability to respond to a new vaccine decreases sharply with age, and it is older people who are hardest hit. In other words, those who need it the most might benefit the least, even if a vaccine is developed quickly. Also, infections like COVID-19 contracted though the lining of the nose are very difficult to prevent.
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