[imagesource: John Moore/ Getty Images]

More than four million confirmed cases, and close to 145 000 deaths – it’s safe to say that America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has not been a success.

That’s unsurprising when you consider who sits in the Oval Office, and how media outlets like Fox News initially downplayed the threat of the virus to the point where they fear legal retribution.

Then there are the ‘but my freedoms!’ anti-face maskers, which has led to restaurant closures and the rise of Instagram accounts like Karens Gone Wild.

All in all, America finds itself in a situation where multiple states are experiencing outbreaks, with the mortality rate climbing in 13 states, and infections rising in more than 30.

Writing for the Washington Post, Leana Wen, an emergency physician who previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner, outlines three scenarios for what comes next.

The first of these is titled ‘Status Quo‘, where the current approach continues without harsher measures to curb the spread being implemented:

Policymakers have instituted some mitigation measures, but most are too little, too late. Arizona bars are closed, but not restaurants. Some counties in Florida are requiring masks, but the governor refuses to issue a statewide mandate…

There will be a breaking point. Perhaps it will come when patients can’t access non-coronavirus health services: when women in labor or heart attack patients are turned away from ERs. In the meantime, the United States is on track to surpass 200,000 deaths by the fall.

By then, out-of-control spread is estimated to leave nearly 1 in 4 Americans unemployed.

There is much about our national response that has been flawed, but at least we don’t have different states enforcing different measures to contend with.

The second scenario is ‘Full shutdown’, meaning that everyone across the entire country stays at home for four to six weeks.

In reality, there is virtually no chance of that happening, but Wen reckons it would have a massive impact:

Those already infected would spread the virus only to their immediate households. If no one has additional contacts, we collectively starve the virus and stop transmission…

I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t we try that already, back in March?… Many states began loosening restrictions even as infection rates there climbed. At best, the United States “flattened the curve,” with roughly 17,000 daily infections as our lowest point…

“The idea of a hard shutdown should be on the table,” says Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “It would be more difficult and disruptive, but the short-term pain could bring the economy back more quickly.”

Given that President Donald Trump’s primary concern is the economy, ahead of the elections later in the year, it ain’t gonna happen.

The third and final scenario is ‘Whack-a-mole‘, which would involve targeting states and areas that are the worst affected, similar to the ‘hotspot’ approach that was talked about by our own government.

States facing the most dire conditions will need some version of stay-at-home orders until they hit specific goals, such as test positivity rates below 5 percent, results returned in less than 48 hours and sustained downward trends in infections for 14 days…

Would this approach be sufficient? Perhaps, though the rebound that follows reopening would be much more rapid than with “full shutdown” since cases would not be fully suppressed. Problems of inadequate testing and tracing are almost certain to recur.

Based on the results of similar lockdowns from other countries, there are serious flaws to this plan, such as interstate travel causing the virus to spread even with measures in place.

Rather ominously, professor and epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, says America is on its “third strike”, and that decision time has arrived.

If they continue to get it so wrong, the impact, both on the economy and the death toll, will continue to be devastating.

America’s biggest problem? This video, compiled on June 9, speaks for itself:

[source:washpost]