[D66] Congressional doctor expects up to 150 million Americans to contract the coronavirus

[A.OUT]

WSWS.ORG:

Congressional doctor expects up to 150 million Americans to contract the 
coronavirus
By Bryan Dyne
12 March 2020

Behind closed doors, Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the 
US Congress and Supreme Court, informed the senate staff that he expects 
a staggering 70 to 150 million people in the United States to become 
infected with COVID-19, according to NBC.

In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated a similar figure, 
that up to 70 percent of Germany, some 58 million people, could become 
infected.

The report from NBC came amidst data showing a sharp increase in total 
cases worldwide to at least 126,000 and more than 4,600 deaths—a 50 
percent increase in new cases internationally, compared to a 30 percent 
increase the previous day. The number of cases outside of China has 
increased 13-fold in the past two weeks to more than 40,000, and the 
number of countries where infection has been reported has tripled.

At the current rate, there will be a million cases outside of China by 
the end of this month and one million cases in the United States alone 
sometime during the second week of April.

Monahan’s comments were made public just hours after the World Health 
Organization (WHO) formally declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic 
and cited “alarming levels of inaction” by governments to prevent the 
spread. At the same time, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom 
Ghebreyesus warned that it wasn’t just some countries lacked “capacity” 
or “resources” but that “[s]ome countries are struggling with a lack of 
resolve.”
Judie Shape, center, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, blows 
a kiss to her son-in-law, Michael Spencer, left, as Shape's daughter, 
Lori Spencer, right, looks on, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, as they visit 
on the phone and look at each other through a window at the Life Care 
Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

This was seen most clearly during US President Trump’s prime time 
presidential address last night. During his remarks, Trump, visibly 
rattled, announced no new measures to fight the expanding health crisis. 
He instead invoked a reactionary ban on all travel from Europe for 30 
days, excluding the United Kingdom, as well as using emergency powers to 
provide economic relief to small businesses and large corporations.

In a comment directly contradicting Monahan, Trump reasserted his lie 
that for “the vast majority of Americans, the risk is very, very low.” 
At the same time, the conflicting stances between the claims of the 
president and the admission by a top US official that nearly half the 
country might fall victim to the pandemic highlights the paralysis of 
the Trump administration and the entire political establishment in the 
face of the most perilous public health crisis since the Spanish flu in 
1918.

In what presumably was an attempt to provide a silver lining to the 
congressional staffers, Monahan reportedly touted that 80 percent of 
those who contract the virus will recover. While there are so far no 
reports indicating what he thinks will happen to the other 20 percent of 
COVID-19 patients, the virus’ progression through China and 
internationally gives some indication.

At the height of the epidemic in Wuhan, during which the health care 
system essentially collapsed in the face of several thousand cases, the 
mortality rate sharply spiked. In the US, a similar progression, if 
aggressive containment measures are not instituted, will result in 
millions dead.

The chief cause of the spike in Wuhan was not the virus itself, but the 
lack of available medical equipment and personnel to provide care for 
critically sick patients. Data collected since January indicates that 
somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of coronavirus patients suffer from 
severe respiratory problems that require an intensive care unit, oxygen 
or both, in order to give their own body’s immune system time to fight 
off the disease.

As hospitals in Wuhan were flooded with those ill or worried that they 
were ill, it became virtually impossible for those with a severe case of 
COVID-19 to receive the necessary medical assistance to survive. They 
ultimately suffocated, gasping for breath as their airways steadily closed.

At the same time, as has been seen in China as well as in South Korea, 
Singapore and Hong Kong, strict testing, monitoring and quarantine 
measures can effectively halt the spread of the virus. In China, the 
epicenter of the virus, the number of new cases has continued to be 
under 100 for several days. In South Korea, the total mortality rate is 
less than one percent, despite having to deal with almost 8,000 total cases.

Without immediate and far-reaching measures to curb the spread of the 
infection, the United States will face a catastrophic scenario.

Even if the quarantine measures implemented in China were imposed on the 
US population today, the number of infected would likely rise to between 
150,000 and 200,000 by early April. Upwards of 30,000 will require 
serious medical intervention in order to live. There are not enough 
hospital beds in the country to provide life-saving care for such a 
number of critical cases, much less the millions predicted by Monahan.

While the United States was not explicitly named, the total inability of 
the US health care system to meet the demands of the coronavirus were 
spelled out near the end of yesterday’s WHO briefing.

Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan stated: “Some countries clearly, and 
you’ve seen this through the infection of health workers, have not yet 
got in place necessary measures to stop infections transmitting. Our 
hospital systems are designed to deliver at 99 percent efficiency. They 
don’t have any space to deliver more.”

This is most true in the United States, where decades of for-profit 
health care has resulted in the provision of the bare minimum of empty 
hospital beds, as well as forcing doctors, nurses and other medical 
professionals to work longer and longer shifts.

The indifference towards the lives of the American and international 
population expressed by Trump, Merkel and every representative of the 
world’s ruling elites is not incompetence, but political criminality. 
Like every major crisis, the financial aristocracy sees this as an 
opportunity to eliminate the “surplus population” and absorb billions of 
social security, Medicare, Medicaid and pension funds into their pockets.