Winning wars can require some very difficult decisions. It can mean sending soldiers into battle where there will be casualties. It is a war. We are fighting to save our families. Jobs. Our way of life. Everyone has a role and should enlist. 
We don’t have to live in fear. The disease is far less deadly than we thought. The virus can be managed. With smart planning and collaboration, we can bring back some semblance of normality. This war is won with information, communications and discipline. Victory is within reach.
We are currently losing. The treatment we gave has turned out to be far worse than the disease. It is the lockdown, not the virus that is killing us. We lose if the economy is shut down so we need to change strategy. Quickly. Covid is a disease, like cancer. It spreads. First course of treatment is surgery not chemotherapy. Last course is chemotherapy. We chose chemo 30 million families have lost their source of income.
Victory is not hiding in your home and waiting for a vaccine. The virus to come get you. it will, while you watch all we as a society have built up waste away and die and millions suffer. In New York 66% of cases were contracted in home.
If we train our citizens in how to manage the virus we can survive long enough for reinforcements in the form of vaccines. We have a new reality. This can work. It will enable us all to get back to some normalcy. And the only other option is to just wait and die.
What is Victory? Winning means economy moving and people back to work tomorrow while maintaining a functioning healthcare system. Minimizing casualties. Unemployment back to under 10% by year end and 7% by the spring. 5% by mid 2021.
Lockdown is the path to defeat. A general lockdown is no longer the right strategy. We lose the war if the economy does not rebound. We can’t live to fight another day without resources. And Covid will return again before there is a vaccine. And we can’t have another shutdown.
Focused Quarantine. We know where the risks are. Focus on the vulnerable, not the healthy. Understand who is at risk. Those with underlying conditions and elderly. The must quarantine, for the rest Covid is manageable. They may become very sick but not die.
Community based solution. Citizens will solve this. Not politicians. Every community, neighborhood and workplace is unique. Each is a battle ground of its own and needs a custom approach led by those in that community such as business owners, not bureaucrats. The one size fits all approach which characterizes government initiatives always fail.
Accept casualties. Those in their prime who are engaged in the fight. There will be casualties, but they can be minimal. and painful to the thousands directly impacted. But miniscule in comparison to the suffering of millions from economic. People will die, but most will be those who have already had full life.. Don’t let deaths of despair from Covid eclipse the deaths from Covid respiratory failure. Keep casualties in the range as Hospital Acquired Infections, below 100,000 per year
This is a very scary time and one in which we are far more dependent upon our fellow citizens for our health and well being than before. With focus and discipline this can work. For each of us it means to train and get on the battle-field and fight. Keys to Success:
- Basic Training. Training to win. Virology 101. A properly trained citizen has little risk of death. Every citizen must train for battle, to ensure that they don’t get infected and if they do, they don’t spread.
- Personal responsibility. Risk Assessment. Each person responsible for themselves and for not infecting others. Understanding air dynamics. Understanding immune health and how to build your defense.
- Leverage technology. UV light technology, Understanding PPE and the new technologies that are being developed to kill the virus. New drugs and treatments to recover if infected.
Reclaim your life from the grips of COVID and if you want to see who will save you from this mess, just look in the mirror. No one else.
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Time to End the Lockdown in NYC?
It appears physicians immersed in the midst of it all are seeing it that way. Most compelling was an opinion written by St. Barnabas Hospital Emergency director Daniel G. Murphy MD. The Bronx New York hospital which serves a lower income community is in the center of the pandemic. Another physician, Scott Atlas MD who is from Stanford has taken to the airwaves advocating an end to the lockdown. April 29 2020
YouTube Video Pulled After 5 Million Views
Owners of Urgent Care Clinic site data indicating that it is time to re-open to avoid an even worse healthcare outcome from the continued shutdown. This is closer to the Flu in terms of its fatality. And is of very little risk to those young and healthy. They went public with their findings because they disputed the efficacy of local healthy authority. April 29, 2020.