My biggest concern right now as #COVID19 surges in multiple hotspots throughout the country is that people will say ‘well, we did the lockdown thing & clearly that didn’t work’ and accept a ‘que sera, sera’ approach to this ongoing pandemic.

Let’s discuss why that’s dangerous ⬇️
Let me start be reiterating that our initial response was garbage.

Our response was delayed, we failed to step up testing, and political messaging took precedence over public health messaging.

Why’s that important???

Because we are STILL dealing with those repercussions now.
Our testing STILL isn’t adequate. We have almost no official, reliable public health messaging. We’ve seemingly completely moved on.

When we still have ~20k new cases and ~1k deaths a day.

This has become our baseline. And people are like, ok. 🤷‍♂️

This is really, really f’d up.
Do I worry about the protests leading to ⬆️ cases? Yup.

Do I worry that people’s refusal to wear masks will spread the virus? Yup.

Do I worry that we’re gonna be hammered in the fall and winter, especially if we don’t make key changes and take necessary steps right now? Yup.
But honestly what I worry about the most is that somehow we’ve all accepted that this - a stupendous number of new cases and deaths every day - is just fine. Is normal. Is all that we can do.

Let this serve as your reminder that it isn’t fine. It’s not normal. We MUST do more.
Today it’s Arizona, South Carolina, and Texas.

In a few weeks, it might be the same states. Or it might be new hotspots in new states.

Regardless, if we don’t take this virus seriously, it will continue to roll around this country, infecting our friends, family and colleagues.
I honestly believe we haven’t yet seen the worst of #COVID19 in the US.

Maybe my NYC ER will never look like it did in early April (I hope not!).

But I’m certain other ERs throughout the country will sadly experience what we did.

Because we didn’t take this seriously enough.
You can follow @Craig_A_Spencer.
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