In a recent candid interview with two renowned infectious disease experts, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease since 1984 and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, addressed the coronavirus pandemic science, epidemiology and public health.
This is a very unique and changing virus, which makes it very confusing, he said. “One of the major problems is young people not taking it seriously for understandable reasons.”
“We have got to get them to believe that they are part of the Propagation of a pandemic, even though they are doing well themselves.”
“I have never seen a pathogen with such an amazing spectrum of disease severity, going from 20% to 40% of the people who are infected yet with no symptoms, mostly young people.” They are contagious.
“By propagating the pandemic, they are preventing us from getting back to normal and reopening. The virus itself is really, really tricky.”
And, in this young, asymptomatic group, there are CT scan series showing lung damage in a significant proportion, perhaps even half. This is “like a double silence-no symptoms, and with silent hits on their lungs, and perhaps other organs”.
“We don’t yet know the long term consequences. We must be careful”.
And now, even after you clear the virus, there are post-viral symptoms, some severe and moving toward chronic illness and debilitation.
And for every leader, from Donald Trump to Mike Dunleavy, to refuse to insist and mandate what the science and mountains of data confirm — without masking, distancing, hand-sanitizing in partnership with common sense, makes one a pandemic propagator. Every such propagator is complicit in preventing our return to normalcy and reopening. Such absence of responsibility is hardly “freedom”, but, rather, as Paul Krugman has written, “This cult of selfishness is killing America.”
Peter Mjos, M.D.
Anchorage
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