I was appalled at the tenor of the emails pouring in opposing the stayat-home order during the Gallatin County Board of Health meeting last Thursday. The emails complained of curtailment of civil liberties, mainly, the right to assembly and freedom of movement. These objections ignore that, by law, public health agencies have a right and obligation to order restrictions when public health is endangered. No one has a constitutional right to willfully spread disease and imperil fellow citizens, especially those in the highest risk categories. We are now at war with one of the most powerful adversaries America has ever faced and this requires sacrifices.
Social distancing and other strong measures likely have greatly contributed to Montana’s reduced infection rate. Without these, COVID-19, twice as contagious as influenza and ten times more deadly, will spread like a wind-driven California wildfire, overwhelming hospitals. It took three months to infect 100,000 people and only 12 days to infect the next 100,000 people worldwide. According to the CDC, while few younger people die, among adults requiring hospitalization, 20% were people ages 20 to 44 with 12% of those admitted to ICU. Some recovered patients may experience up to 20-30% lost lung capacity due to scarring of tissue from the disease. No person on Earth is immune to this virus.
These emails also ignore history. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, the disease waned during the summer months and people freely resumed normal activities bringing on a much more lethal second wave of the flu in the fall. In the end, 50 million people worldwide died. The impatience to reopen the country and resume normal activities represents short-term thinking with potentially disastrous consequences. Social interaction is critical to human health and well-being—normally—but not in this time of pandemic, with COVID-19.
Carl Esbjornson
Bozeman
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Letter to the Editor 4/21/20