It’s not science: Doctors getting drowned out on coronavirus reentry in SC | Opinion
When you’re sick, go to the doctor.
Is that so complicated?
It looks like we’ve gotten sick from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but we don’t want to go to the doctor.
Gov. Henry “Timex” McMaster last week issued two executive orders to reopen beaches and some retail businesses. He said it was based on science and data, according to reporting in The State newspaper of Columbia.
Make that political science, and unspecified data.
McMaster says his decisions have been coming after consultation with President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other governors.
They are not doctors.
However, the president, to his credit, has listened to doctors enough to tell us to do two things.
The White House said we should “avoid discretionary travel.”
In Myrtle Beach, that meant shutting down overnight lodging.
On Hilton Head Island, it did not.
Trump’s White House also told states they should show 14 consecutive days of declining coronavirus case numbers prior to encouraging the public to move about and get back to work.
Gov. Timex blew right past that doctor’s order.
When reporters at his press conference asked why he was loosening restrictions before meeting the White House standard, McMaster said:
“Those are guidelines. We’re following guidelines. That’s not the law. We have information here from our professionals here in South Carolina as well and we go by that as well.”
But when a doctor, state epidemiologist Linda Bell, was asked about it minutes later, she said:
“We have not yet seen a consistent decline in case reports.”
Doctors I’ve talked to say they want more numbers, numbers, numbers. We don’t have enough data to be making decisions, they say.
“There is really very little science here,” I’m told.
To get data, we need time. It simply takes time. Americans have very little aptitude for that concept.
The data will come from testing — lots and lots of antibody testing, I’m told.
We need to know the immunity in the community. Each community needs a statistically-significant sampling to show how many people have the disease and how many have already had it. A primary concern for doctors is the unknown number of people who are infected but show no symptoms.
Getting this data will require things we don’t have much of: Adequate materials and labs, available public health workers, and a population educated to a need to participate.
I’m told, “You have to do the blood test.”
I’m told the medical profession is making progress, the blood tests are here, and data is coming.
But meanwhile, governors and mayors should listen to doctors.
Hilton Head is listening to the business community.
So is the governor.
They need to tell it like it is.
Let them say that the most important data we know shows that relatively few will get seriously ill from COVID-19.
Let them say that our governments, private businesses and most households cannot remain solvent for one more month under these conditions.
Say that.
It’s the truth.
But don’t say you were sick and went to see the doctor.
Say you were sick and went to see the banker.
