‘Mass Casualty Incident’: 600 Doctors Sign Letter Urging Trump to End Shutdowns, Warn of Consequences

More than 600 doctors signed a letter urging President Trump to end the nationwide coronavirus shutdowns and referred to orders issued by states that keep businesses closed as a “mass casualty incident” with devastating consequences.

The letter points out the negative consequences that doctors have observed since state governments started issuing their stay-at-home orders, including patients missing checkups with doctors, increases in substance abuse and alcohol abuse, and negative financial implications, according to Fox News.

“We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients,” the letter said. “The downstream health effects … are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.”

“In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident,” the letter continued. “The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”

One of the doctors named in the letter, Dr. Mark McDonald, told Fox News that the indirect effects of the shutdowns outweigh the direct consequences that would follow if the shutdowns were lifted.

“The very initial argument … which sounded reasonable three months ago, is that in order to limit the overwhelmed patient flux into hospitals that would prevent adequate care, we needed to spread out the infections and thus the deaths in specific locales that could become hot spots, particularly New York City. … It was a valid argument at the beginning based on the models that were given,” McDonald said. “What we’ve seen now over the last three months is that no city — none, zero — outside of New York has even been significantly stressed.”

McDonald added that hospitals are currently not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, and in fact, some are even being shut down.

Dr. Simone Gold, who was the lead organizer in the letter, agreed with McDonald.

“When you look at the data of the deaths and the critically ill, they are patients who were very sick to begin with,” Gold said. “There’s always exceptions. … But when you look at the pure numbers, it’s overwhelmingly patients who are in nursing homes and patients with serious underlying conditions. Meaning, that that’s where our resources should be spent. I think it’s terribly unethical. … Part of the reason why we let [the virus] fly through the nursing homes is because we’re diverting resources across society at large. We have limited resources. We should put them where it’s killed people.”

The letter was sent to Trump during a time when people across the country have taken to the streets to protest stay-at-home orders.

A study published earlier this month by Just Facts concluded that “anxiety from reactions to COVID-19 will destroy at least seven times more years of life than can be saved by lockdowns.”

Several articles and studies have been published suggesting that lockdowns aren’t effective, including an article from the American Enterprise Institute titled “Lockdowns don’t work” and a study from researchers at JPMorgan Chase, who argue that infection rates will fall, not increase, when lockdowns end.

Still, some medical experts, including White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, insist that lockdowns have been a necessary part of stopping the spread of the virus.

Source: The Washington Examiner