If you’re confused just what the goal of all the isolations, crowd size limits and other precautions to fight the COVID-19 virus are all about, look at it this way.
Lots of people are going to get the much-feared virus. But they don’t have to all get it at once.
Robert Kirkpatrick, Milam County Health Department Director, told The Reporter a good visualization of the goal is “flattening the curve.”
“The goal is not to overwhelm our health care providers,” he said.
Can that happen? It did in Italy where the virus’s rapid growth rate filled some Italian hospitals to capacity, forcing some to close their doors to new patients, seek hundreds of new doctors and request emergency supplies of the most basic medical supplies from abroad.
Measures in place in Milam County, and many other communities, are designed to limit the spread of COVID-19 to a slow pace, giving medical facilities time to cope with the less potentially apocalyptic spread.
Even though the same number of people eventually get infected, it is spread over a greater portion of time.
The result, a less-stressed health care system, fewer hospitals on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away.
How does that happen?
Social distancing—closing schools, no large gatherings, avoiding crowds—that’s how.
Some evidence, according to population health researcher Drew Harris of Thomas Jefferson University: When the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic hit, the population of St. Louis was about onethird that of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia mostly ignored warnings about social distancing and held a parade attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Within two and one half days people began to die from the flu.
Ultimately, 16,000 Philadelphians died over the net six months.
St. Louis implemented social isolation strategies. The government closed schools, limited travel and encouraged personal hygiene and social distancing. Sound familiar?
The Spanish Flu claimed 2,000 lives in St. Louis. That’s one eighth—not onethird (6,000 deaths) as would be expected—that of Philadelphia.
St. Louis had successfully flattened the curve.
That’s Milam’s goal, too.
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