When the Wuhan Virus is over, maybe we need to pay attention to some other epidemics.

PUBLISHER EDITORIAL:

When the Wuhan virus epidemic runs its course, as it ultimately will, I suggest that it is then time to re-evaluate our response to the epidemic and give some hard thought to other public health crises and the scale of response that is appropriate to current and future epidemics.

As of the creation of this article on March 22, 2020, the US has had 344 fatalities from this Wuhan version of coronavirus.  In response to this, we have shut down our borders, limited free movement of citizens, shut down major portions of the national economy, and spent massive sums of money.  We will see in the end what worked, what didn’t work, where we over-reacted, and where we under-reacted.  Fair enough.

But it will also raise questions about priorities — not just about the current Wuhan epidemic but about the other epidemics that have been killing Americans for decades without an end in sight.

So far, the Wuhan virus has been killing 6.5 people per day from February until today.  Hopefully, it will not go dramatically higher.  But what about the other epidemics?

• Opioid overdose deaths –128 per day in the US
• Suicides–132 per day in the US
• Common Flu (2018) deaths — 167 per day in the US
• Auto accident deaths — 108 per day in the US
• Child sexual molestations — 178 per day in the US
• Child abuse deaths — 4 per day in the US
• Cancer deaths — 1662 per day in the US

And these aren’t the only ones — just the ones that I thought of off the top of my head.

Why haven’t these warranted a national shutdown in spite of decades of deaths and sexual abuse or at least some serious programs to slash the numbers?  We are making some progress in some cases, but very little in others.

I am not suggesting that that the Wuhan virus is not deserving of a response to limit its death toll.  I am suggesting that we need a national discussion on which epidemics are going to get this maximum response going forward so we have a consensus on our national priorities.  Sure, all of these are tough problems that resist easy solutions, but if just a portion of the angst and panic, money, and focus were applied to them as to the Wuhan coronavirus, I believe we could make substantial reductions in deaths in some of these.

If we aren’t going to address these by planning and priorities, then we are stuck with crises reactions to whatever new threat that arises to send the medical or financial worlds into a panic whether rightfully or unnecessarily.