My brother-in-law, Rob Kresch, MD, posted this on Facebook:
Open letter to Mr. VP Mike Pence and President Donald J. Trump, from Nik Nikam, MD, MHA., DTM and the majority of physicians, dentists, and medical professionals in this group:
Dear VP Mike Pence and President Donald J. Trump,
We, the physicians in America, feel it is high time to declare a complete lock down of the entire country, as they did in Wuhan, Italy, and South Korea.
Please take a look at the world Coronavirus statistics as of March 15, 2020.
There is a clear distinction between the countries that have a very low rate of new cases reported, as compared to the US, UK and other European countries.
Countries like Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong had the lowest rate of new cases reported during the last 10 day period.
The number of new cases in South Korea has already leveled off for the past 7 days.
Mr. Vice President and Mr. President: the writing is on the wall, or should I say on the picture.
A picture is worth a million words. It may be worth tens of thousand of lives.
As you can see the US new cases are on a steep takeoff, like a military jet. We cannot afford to let this happen.
1. It will skyrocket the number of new cases.
2. It will increase the number of infected people from this deadly disease.
3. It will tax the healthcare system, lead to exhaustion and more medical professional causalities.
4. It will have a profound impact on our battered economy.
5. We will be left behind the rest of the world in overcoming this pandemic.
We should be leading the world in the efforts to confront this Coronavirus, bring an end to this colossal loss of human lives, and prevent a devastating blow to the world economy and the draining of our healthcare systems.
In addition, 20% to 30% of the people are left with significant long term lung problems. We don’t need this.
So, we physicians and medical professionals, who work in the trenches alongside deathly sick patients with this coronavirus infection, see the human carnage and we can help these people. Mr. President, with your help and power, we can bring an end to this senseless loss of lives due to inaction.
We urge VP Mike Pence and you, Mr. President Donald J. Trump, to take immediate action and institute total lock down so the medical professionals can begin to help those who are already infected and in the hospitals.
We love our medical profession and are willing to sacrifice our own lives to save fellow human beings. However, we don’t need to let innocent people die for nothing.
Mr. Trump, you have the presidential power to save this nation, protect people from getting infected, and from dying for nothing.