“This is the biggest public health crisis in a century,” Director of Centers for Disease Control Robert Redfield said bluntly Thursday.
In fact, Redfield sees the upcoming flu season in Dickensian terms.
‘It depends on how the American people choose to react. It really is the worst of times, the best of all time, depending on the American public, ‘he said, paraphrasing the opening of Charles Dickens’ classic A story of two cities.
The current pandemic, combined with the upcoming flu season, could make the “worst fall, from a public health perspective we have ever had,” the CDC director said in an interview with WebMD.
On which side of the scale will the US fall? Redfield said that depends on how consistently Americans wear face masks, stay 6 feet apart, wash their hands and avoid manly gatherings.
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“I ask some of America not to do it – we have to do it all,” Redfield said. Somewhere between 95 to 99 percent of Americans will have to follow the guidelines for the U.S. to escape disaster, he said.
The scenario that health experts warn is the flu season piled on top of an already widespread and active pandemic, overwhelming hospitals and resulted in many more deaths because people were unable to get treatment.
One person who is not hopeful about the country’s ability to escape a disastrous fall is the expert in the field of infection, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“If you look at other parts of the country,” Fauci said of regions that have not yet experienced major spikes, “this is the thing that bothers me: the tests that are positive. ”
That’s because the country reported 1,500 COVID deaths in one day for the first time since May.
“We now know, from sad experience from the past, that this is a prediction that you will have more power,” Fauci said during a panel discussion held by National Geographic.
“Bottom line is,” he said, “I’m not happy with how things are going.”
So how many Americans wear masks? Are we living anywhere near 90 percent?
A Gallup poll, released exactly one month ago, found that 44 percent of U.S. adults say they “always” wear a mask when they are outside their homes, and 28 percent say they do so ‘very often.’ do. At the same time, three in 10 report doing less frequently, including 11 percent “sometimes”, 4 percent “rarely” and 14 percent “never.”
According to Johns Hopkins, the U.S. saw 55,910 new cases and 1,499 new deaths due to the virus on Thursday. Given the lack of testing and traces of contact, it is likely that these numbers are an undercount.
A recent analysis by the New York Times that looked at deaths above the national average found very clear spikes of extra deaths following the spread of the virus. According to the Times, at least 200,000 more people than usual have died in the country since March. That is with many Americans locked inside, not working and only making outings for shopping.
So what does it look like “the worst fall, from a public health perspective we’ve ever had,” out?
The 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic was the deadliest pandemic in history. One third of the world’s population was infected. The virus killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 people in the United States. That was at a time when the American population (in 1917, outbreak) was 103 million.
The country’s population in 2019 was more than 3 times that, at 328 million. The current epidemic has already claimed 165,000 American lives.
The lead author of a new study published Thursday in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, Dr. Jeremy Faust, says that COVID-19 “has potential 1918.” Faust is a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
“If not treated properly, SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID-19] infection can be compared to greater mortality than 1918 H1N1 influenza virus infection, ”according to the study.
During the ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic, the biggest loss of life occurred in just 6 weeks between mid-November and the end of December. One-third of virus deaths in America occurred during that period.
It is quite possible that the worst of times may yet come.
