Time is Running Out, Raimondo Is Failing Us — Nick Landekic
Nick Landekic, Guest MINDSETTER™
Time is Running Out, Raimondo Is Failing Us — Nick Landekic
Covidactnow.org, a non-profit multidisciplinary team of technologists, epidemiologists, and public health experts affiliated with Harvard, Stamford, and Georgetown Universities, on October 19 raised the threat level in Rhode Island to Active Outbreak and Critical. They also forecast that over the next year, Rhode Island will experience around 130,000 cases and a staggering estimated 630,000 infections - 60% of the population of the state.
The evidence is overwhelming that Governor Raimondo’s experiment with opening early and fast, and relying primarily on testing, has failed. People are getting sick at a rapidly increasing and uncontrollable rate, and more deaths will follow. The pandemic is now so out of control in Rhode Island that the only way out of this predicament is with measures no one likes to talk about, especially the Governor. The only way forward is to do what should have been done in the first place, to learn from and follow the examples of states such as Vermont and Maine that have successfully contained the pandemic.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWe must start over, with a stay at home order for everyone; returning schools to remote learning only; allowing only take-out service at restaurants; and close bars and non-essential businesses. When the incidence reaches a continuously low and declining level (such as 4/100,00/day), then reopening can restart, prudently, cautiously, and following science-based guidelines this time and not caving in to financial pressures. No one wants to hear this, but without these measures, the illness and death toll - and ultimate economic costs - in Rhode Island risk being catastrophic.
Vermont is a model for how to effectively contain the pandemic in the absence of either vaccines or highly effective treatments. Compared to Rhode Island’s 1,177 deaths, a total of 58 people have died in Vermont. To Rhode Island’s 30,118 cases Vermont has had 2,016, with an average of 14 new cases per day compared to our 347. Which approach worked better?
In the face of clear proof that the pandemic is escalating out of control in Rhode Island, with the number of new cases for the past three weeks exceeding even the high level of 100/100,000/week set by the Governor as the bar for stepping back, with the corroboration of academic and independent organizations such as covidactnow.org and covidexitstrategy.org, and with the dire warning on October 23 by Dr. Michael Fine, former Rhode Island Director of Health, it is incomprehensible that Governor Raimondo still refuses to take action and instead is ‘watching the numbers’.
‘Watching the numbers’ means watching more people get sick and die. These are not abstract numbers in a venture capital spreadsheet, or watching the stock market hoping the ’numbers’ will somehow magically improve.
Each of these ‘numbers’ is a person coming down with COVID-19. As Dr. Fine warned, RI’s hospitals will soon be overwhelmed. If covidactnow.org’s projection of 630,000 infections over the next year comes to pass, this could mean tens of thousands of deaths.
The state legislature must force the Governor to take meaningful actions (not ineffective perfunctory token gestures). Our representatives took an oath of office to be true and faithful unto the state. The people are the state of Rhode Island, and we will suffer, and die, unless action is taken.
As shocking as it may be to consider, if the Governor is simply not capable of rising to the challenge of this crisis, then perhaps she should resign and a more capable, compassionate, and empathetic person step in with the priority to safeguard health and lives over short-term financial interests.
Time is running out to take action and prevent needless suffering and deaths.
Nick Landekic a retired scientist and biotechnology executive with over 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.