by WorldTribune Staff, May 25, 2020
Extended coronavirus lockdowns pushed by politicians and their major media allies are fueling a deadly “mass casualty incident” from other factors, a group of more than 600 doctors said in an open letter asking President Donald Trump to end the virus shutdown.
State lockdown orders keeping businesses closed and children home from school are leading to “exponentially growing health consequences,” said Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency medicine specialist based in Los Angeles and the head organizer of the letter.
“I could read you heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story sent to me by physicians of patients that have died or suffered severe harm because they were afraid to go to the hospital and their own doctor’s offices were shut,” Gold said in a May 21 Fox News interview.
As a result of the shutdowns imposed by politicians and the fear induced by the corporate media, doctors have seen increases in the number of patients missing routine checkups that could detect issues like heart problems or cancer, increased substance and alcohol abuse, and greater financial instability that could lead to “[p]overty and financial uncertainty,” which “is closely linked to poor health,” the doctors said.
“Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600 percent,” the letter sent to the president said.
The deadly lockdown orders and the narrative constantly pushed by the media that the virus is everywhere and deadly to everyone has people fearful about going to hospitals for heart attacks and even for broken bones and deep lacerations, the doctors say.
An NPR report cited a Washington state resident who had what she described as the “worst headache of her life.” She waited almost a week before going to the hospital where doctors discovered she had a brain bleed that had gone untreated. She had multiple strokes and died. “This is something that most of the time we’re able to prevent,” said her neurosurgeon, Dr. Abhineet Chowdhary, director of the Overlake Neuroscience Institute in Bellevue, Washington.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, warned that restrictions are having a huge negative impact on non-coronavirus patients.
“Even patients who do get admitted to hospital, say for a heart problem, are prisoners. No one can be with them. Visitation at a rare single-story hospital was through closed outside window, talking via telephone,” Orient told Forbes. “To get permission to go to the window you have to make an appointment (only one group of two per day!), put on a mask, get your temperature taken, and get a visitor’s badge of the proper color of the day.”
How many cases of COVID-19 are prevented by these practices? “Zero,” Dr. Orient says. But the “ loss of patient morale, loss of oversight of care, especially at night are incalculable.”
Virtually all hospitals halted “elective” procedures to make beds available for what an expected onslaught of COVID-19 patients that never occurred.
Some politicians are threatening to keep stay-at-home orders in place until August. Many schools and universities say they may remain closed for the remainder of 2020.
The letter to Trump focuses on the impact on Americans’ physical and mental health. “The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”
Gold said stroke patients could be at particular risk during the pandemic.
A new study from the Washington University School of Medicine has found that stroke evaluations have dropped by nearly 40 percent, suggesting that many stroke patients are not getting potentially life-saving medical treatment, according to Science Daily.
The letter also notes liquor sales have increased 300 to 600 percent, and cigarette sales have also gone up.
The doctors say in the letter to Trump: “We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients. … It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown.”
Gold told Fox News: “We just want America to hear the story. We feel like there is one narrative out there. … You need to hear the whole picture, the rest of the story.”
Writing for Forbes, Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, noted: “Some critics on Twitter have cited an irrelevant Associated Press article to discredit her (Gold’s) work, claiming it was a Republican ‘fronted’ effort. Not true.”
“This was 100 percent physician grassroots. There was 0 percent GOP,” Dr. Gold told Forbes.
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