600 Physicians’ Letter: Governors Can No Longer Ignore Deaths & Dire Health Consequences of Lockdown
Wow, this letter to President Trump from six hundred physicians about the catastrophic health consequences of the needlessly prolonged COVID-19 lockdown does not mince words.
More than 600 of the nation’s physicians sent a letter to President Trump this week calling the coronavirus shutdowns a “mass casualty incident” with “exponentially growing negative health consequences” to millions of non COVID patients.
“The downstream health effects…are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error,” according to the letter initiated by Simone Gold, M.D., an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles. …
From missed cancer diagnoses to untreated heart attacks and strokes to increased risks of suicides, “We are alarmed at what appears to be a lack of consideration for the future health of our patients.”
[Added: Link to letter itself]
That second wave of deaths many are predicting? Yeah, make that at least two waves: COVID and untreated heart disease.
The number of severe heart attacks being treated in nine U.S hospitals surveyed dropped by nearly 40% since March. Cardiologists are worried “a second wave of deaths” indirectly caused by the virus is likely.
But untreated heart disease will be just one of many fatalities and serious health impacts caused by the lockdown, as the letter makes clear.
“The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.
“It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown.”
This letter focused on the impact of the lockdown in the United States. But it very much will not end there. Keep in mind the projected death toll of millions of human beings in developing countries about which a United Nations analysis sounded the alarm over three weeks ago.
While the six hundred physicians directed their letter to President Trump, it is actually governors who determine their state’s response, under emergency powers, to COVID-19; whether to lockdown and the extent of a lockdown. Certain governors, including Rhode Island’s and Massachusett’s, have chosen to continue an overly-broad lockdown despite the clear data that started coming in early on that any lockdown needed to be far narrower and far more focused on the actual populations and geographic areas suffering the obvious, disproportionate impact of the disease, as the R.I. Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Mike Stenhouse correctly articulates in this excellent video. It was known early on, for example, that the disease took its heaviest toll on older people. Why, then, were the vulnerable, precious residents of Rhode Island’s nursing homes not better protected?
Bigger picture, I remain genuinely puzzled that lockdown governors did not heed and act on the “positive” COVID data – survival rate of at least 98.7%; hospitals not overwhelmed; that it did not target the entire population equally – much earlier on to wind down their lockdowns. Add, more recently, data from the partial re-open experience of Florida (May 4), Georgia (April 24) and Texas (May 1) which did not see a spike in cases as COVID catastrophists predicted.
The situation was especially obvious in Rhode Island when it became known early on that COVID-19 was claiming a very disproportionate number of deaths, horribly, in our nursing homes. In fact, that percentage horrifyingly hit almost 80% a couple of days ago.
That puts the survival rate of identified COVID-19 cases outside of nursing homes, in the broad Rhode Island population, at over 99%. Yet inexplicably, Governor Raimondo has continued a harsh, destructive lockdown of the entire state which was very largely unaffected by COVID fatalities. It is important to note that, by deliberately choosing not to intercede despite their power to do so, the Rhode Island General Assembly also bears some responsibility for the destruction, health and economic, the lockdown is wrecking on the state.
Now, with this stark letter from the six hundred physicians, broad-lockdown governors like Governor Gina Raimondo can no longer ignore the dire health consequences of continuing a harsh lockdown. To do so would be to knowingly pretend that non-COVID deaths that are a direct consequence of the lockdown – and are about to begin dwarfing COVID-19 deaths – do not count and do not matter. And every day that these governors ignore the COVID science and data and the dire warning from these six hundred physicians about the lockdown – and their legislatures continue to idly stand by – is a day that they are knowingly, willfully adding to the coming cascade of deaths.
Monique is a political gadfly, data junkie and contributor to the Ocean State Current and Anchor Rising. Please consider supporting the terrific work of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity here:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/7rkChZKP/RI-Center-for-Freedom-and-Prosperity/