This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated May 8, 2020
Living in a world of social distancing has been hard, but it has clearly helped flatten the curve. Statistically, the numbers for new daily confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in New York City have all come down dramatically from the highs that were recorded on April 6 and 7. Anecdotally, Brooklyn residents can notice that the sound of ambulance sirens no longer permeate the night continuously.
Though these numbers are encouraging, it is still imperative that all New Yorkers continue to do their part and follow the recommended guidelines to help protect the wellbeing of everyone. We are not out of the woods yet and we all have a responsibility to continue the positive gains we have made in stemming the tide of harm this virus has wrought upon New York.
On April 30, Mayor de Blasio advised that the number of hospital admissions had increased slightly. Two days later, Governor Cuomo announced that new deaths across the state were up slightly from the previous day.
It is hard to tell exactly why these minor increases occurred, but it should be reason enough to convince all of us to remain vigilant and diligent in how we go about our daily lives in the safest ways possible. Easter was three weeks before these numbers ticked up and it may be unrelated, but there were many reports of people getting together that day with family they do not live with.
The burden we have dealt with has not been equal among New Yorkers, as some have dealt with more hardships than others, but we have sacrificed too much as a community to not see this through and reap the most benefit from what we have given up.
If you were diagnosed with cancer and told you need three months of chemotherapy, you wouldn’t stop after six weeks because the tumor has shrunk and the treatments have harsh side effects. You would continue the course of action prescribed to you by medical experts, knowing that will give you the best odds of a healthy recovery and that not doing so will likely lead to a second wave of the illness that will require more intense treatment for longer.
“…we have sacrificed too much as a community to not see this through and reap the most benefit from what we have given up.”
Nationally, new cases have dropped by 7 percent between April 25 and May 1, but if you remove New York’s declining numbers, the rest of the country is logging 17 percent more per week. The changes are not due to increased testing. New York has increased testing by 30 percent and seen cases decline, while the rest of the country increased testing by only 12 percent and seen cases rise steadily.
As President Trump urges states to reopen, his administration privately projects coronavirus cases and deaths to increase significantly in upcoming weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths by June 1, which is almost double the current rate of about 1,750. The CDC projection also predicts that the current rate of new cases per day will increase by eight times in the same span.
This chart shows the number of positive cases by diagnosis date, hospitalizations by admission date and deaths by date of death from COVID-19 on a daily basis since March 3.
Internal executive branch reports say that reopening will lead to more deaths, yet this administration continues to encourage states to move ahead. They are prioritizing economic recovery over public health recovery.
Asked on May 4 about whether Americans can live with the 3,000 deaths per day the CDC is projecting, former Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) said, “They’re gonna have to,” likening the “sacrifice” to World War II when we “were standing up for… the American way of life.” Going to war overseas against genocidal fascists bent on taking over the world is in no way comparable to retreating from a war against a virus that will kill many Americans here at home.
Last month, Lt Gov Dan Patrick (R-TX) said we must push forward with reopening because “there are more important things than living” and Rep Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN) talked about “the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life of American lives” and asserted that, “we have to always choose the latter.”
This pandemic has had devastating effects on our economy, but the statistics pertaining to people’s lives are worth far more than any figures measured in dollars.
