March 13th: Health system overwhelm

You may have heard that in Northern Italy the medical system has reached the point where they have to choose which sick patients they will try to save and which they have to "let die". (I was just told by a cousin in Milan that this is in fact NOT happening yet --- but what follows is still relevant). Their system is state-of-the-arts but was still not ready for the onslaught of the virus. Still they are not taking this "lying down". Italy has more than doubled their internal production of respirators, they have accelerated the graduation of medical students, are building new ICU units... and generally scrambling to deal with the emergency. Is anything happening here to get ready? Please call your congressman. It's not just about ramping up testing. We ramp up building weapons in wars. We can certainly built respirators and hospital gear... It would be good for the economy too!

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