Opinion: We Must Shutdown Florida To Protect Our Citizens' Lives

It only took a few weeks for Republicans to go from calling the Coronavirus (COVID-19) a "hoax" to saying that the deaths from the virus do not matter if we save the economy. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick went on Fox News last night and said senior citizens are willing to die to save the U.S. economy.

This approach goes against science and against medical professionals who have warned that if COVID-19 is not contained, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans will die from the virus - a true calamity.

COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 1-3% and with 50% of Americans infected in the future over 1 million Americans will die. That is more deaths than heart disease, cancer, and all other major life threatening illnesses in the United States of America.

Florida is especially vulnerable with an elderly population. Over 25% of Floridians are over the age of 60. It is not just the elderly who are getting sick though, yesterday a 36 year old principal in Brooklyn died from COVID-19. New York City and Seattle have quickly become the Wuhan cases of the United States and soon Florida will join them.

It is a betrayal of our senior citizens to tell them it is okay for them to die because we lack the courage to defend them.

Underlying illnesses like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and others are risk factors. Many Americans suffer from these illnesses and are at risk to die from COVID-19. Serious lack of capacity in testing has made it notoriously difficult to know who is currently infected, yet we already have over 1,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Florida without any major tests available.

Our healthcare system is not able to handle the number of people who will need to be hospitalized from this virus if we allow it to continue to spread wildly. Many people will die simply from a lack of access to a hospital bed or ventilator, from suffocation. Doctors are already running out of masks and other essential supplies needed to fight this virus.

We now have several Republicans out there with opinion pieces and going on television to say that it is unfortunate the people will die, but economic distress is worse. How do you put a value on a death that was completely preventable? Other advanced and civilized nations understand that the needs of the people come first. It is shameful to sentence thousands of Floridians to death because politicians lack the will to fight for our lives.

We will soon face a grim reality in coming weeks when thousands of Floridians are dead if Governor Ron DeSantis does not take action and we will know exactly who to blame.

People come first.