如是我闻：对麻省总医院传染科医生发言的评论

 

从微信美国大学群里第一次看到这个发言的记录是一月七号。自己感觉似乎过分乐观，于是转发给家里的ID医生询问是否可靠，回复如下 （因为前几天不确定发言是否真实，所以现在才分享）：

I'm not an epidemiologist so not in the business of predicting when the surge will peak. But I think its important to keep in mind that these predictions that the surge will peak in a week are predictions based on experiences in other countries like South Africa. And the United States is not South Africa, there are many other variables.

 

Some of the hospitalizations are people coming in for other reasons who also happen to have COVID with mild symptoms or no symptoms. However, there are still plenty of people coming to the hospital because of COVID and it is still massively straining the hospital in terms of beds and staff. And if the surge isn't going to peak for another week, at the rate of increases in cases, hospitals will not be able to keep up.

 

I think its irresponsible to say that COVID will become like the other coronaviruses. It may mutate to cause less symptoms and be less serious, but there's just as much possibility for it to mutate to become more serious.

 

I hope his optimism becomes reality and we can return to some kind of new normal. But I think its far too premature to make such statements, and honestly, irresponsible. Because if the pandemic doesn't slow down, people may take what he says and drop their precautions like masks and avoiding large gatherings and cause more outbreaks.