ANOTHER VIEWPOINT: Prudent to prep for crisis we’re hoping to avert

<p>Fort Wayne Journal Gazette</p><p>It’s hard to find a news source not reporting on the expanding COVID-19 crisis. The emphasis is justified, but just worrying won’t solve anything, and panic will only add to the problem. Planning, communication, common sense and level-headed leadership — that’s what can get our community through whatever this coronavirus may have in store for us.</p><p>As local experts told community leaders at Memorial Coliseum Wednesday, what is known is unsettling. The virus appears to be highly contagious, and those who get it may be spreading it to others for several days before showing any symptoms. And COVID-19 is perhaps 15 times to 20 times more lethal than influenza, which annually kills 40,000 to 60,000 Americans. If as many people get COVID-19 as get the flu, many more are likely to die, they said.</p><p>Allen County Health Department officials want local businesses and residents to understand the seriousness of the situation and to begin to think about how they would cope with an epidemic locally. If there are widespread absences of workers who are ill or who must care for ailing family members, what needs to be done to keep the community’s basic functions going? We need to “keep the lights on, keep the food on the table and keep the community moving ahead,” as Dr. Deborah McMahan, Allen County health commissioner, put it. Anyone already struggling may need even more help — the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, who seem to be especially vulnerable to the virus. “Asking the questions that need to be asked might avert some panic if the worst occurred,” Health Department Administrator Mindy Waldron said.</p><p>But planning for a disaster doesn’t mean it will occur.</p><p>“Maybe it burns out,” McMahan said in an interview after the event. “We don’t really know how easily this thing is spreading.” Alarming as they’ve been, other disease outbreaks, including Ebola and previously discovered coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, were contained before they became worldwide threats.</p><p>“Pandemics behave as unpredictably as the viruses that cause them,” McMahan said. And what we do know about this newly identified coronavirus may be different tomorrow. “The virus is mutating all the time.”</p><p>As Parkview Health infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Steinecker told the group, the world’s health community has made remarkable progress in the nine weeks since the danger of the virus became known in the West. Widespread testing will increase understanding of the dimensions of the threat, and the development of treatments and vaccines is under way.</p><p>That more than 200 medical workers and students as well as other public and private leaders turned out for Wednesday’s program is in itself a reason for hope. “I decided on Friday to have the meeting,” McMahan said. “It is so amazing they were able to mobilize that fast. We tried to have people from every sector. … They showed up, and they stayed.”</p><p>Be vigilant and stay informed. Wash your hands regularly and thoroughly. Avoid unnecessary travel and stay home from work or school if you are sick. But needless anxiety can be harmful, too. We’ll get through this.</p>