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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0843.202 2018-2020 COUNTY CLERK COUNTY OF HAWAI'I Fri 3/27/2020 10:54 AM RECEIVED Time 10:514 Fwd: Real scenarios prR By de Date ' MAR 2 7 2020 To: Council Testimony Aloha This did not go through in time for your meeting. I hope you receive it this time and find it helpful! URGENT-PLEASE SHARE WITH CITY COUNCIL AT THEIR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 MEETING. THANK YOU! March 24, 2020 Aloha City Council and Mayor Kim, I received this email from my longtime friend and doctor in California yesterday. Dr. Miller has been in emergency medicine for fifty years. He is professionally trained to deal with major natural disasters and emergency critical care. As we know, coronavirus is a new common cold virus. In 20% of patients it will progress to pneumonia. That is nothing new for the common cold. In 5% of those patients, it will require ventilator care and in the end, approximately 50% of ventilated pneumonia patients die. According to Dr Miller's research, there were actually about 165,000 Americans who died from pneumonia last year. It is the leading cause of hospital admission after childbirth - and a leading cause of death among elderly people and is even called "the old man's friend!" It is also the most expensive to admit to a hospital, because it consumes vast medical resources, ICU care and has a very long recovery(look no further than the continuing hospitalizations from the Diamond Princess on worldometer.co.rn). The "good news" is that viral pneumonia is often more mild than bacterial pneumonia-- and the well-established standard medical treatment is "at home bedrest". The CDC pumps up the flu mortality figures with pneumonia figures probably to sell the public on flu shots. Last year the actual deaths from flu were under 9,000. These are the best and most accurate numbers that Dr Miller could put together for educated consideration. I became aware (thanks to another ER doctor)what a pandemic might look like and how the virus we could not stop would appear. I knew in January that this virus was not containable with quarantine measures and began to prepare. It is impossible to contain this virus because it has been found (just last weekend) to live 17 days in empty cabins on the Diamond Princess - and it is communicated on the front end for up to four weeks by asymptomatic carriers. It is the newest hardy and enduring common cold virus that can morph into viral pneumonia. It has a standard, ordinary incubation period of 1-4 weeks (you can goggle "viral pneumonia") and for much of that time, those infected will not show symptoms. Often the very first symptom of pneumonia is actual physical collapse. I've had pneumonia twice. I first time I simply fell over and could not Comm. No. •1D1" Ref. To: .N/A Ref. Date MAR 2 0 2020 get back up. It took one month to recover at'ageThe'setOr d time, it took three months. This new virus will present in 88%,of hospital admissions as double lung pneumonia according to radiology reports from China. 'Ithas a distinctive atypical pattern and is easy to diagnosis with a chest x ray - like all pneumonia. I would like to share this information with you at this difficult time. I know that you are under tremendous pressure to do the right thing and are trying your best to save lives as well as save our important local economy. I visited NHCH to see their new ER in Waimea last month. The ER told me they had three ventilators. I know someone from Hilo Hospital where they had seven at the same time. 10 ventilators is not sufficient. This island simply does not have the hospitals staff and equipment to deal with an incoming pandemic. The local hospital opened for a few days of testing,had 0 positives and no sign of community transmission. It also promptly ran out of supplies. They are now asking the public to donate at drop off locations. We are woefully unprepared on this island. That is a painfully glaring fact as you know. As you know we are also critically understaffed at both hospitals. There was a local news headline that we were nearly 50% short of doctors. I know from my visits to Mayo Clinic, where'I go for annual checkups, that in 10 years or less, 50% of our nation's doctors are going to retire. Those senior doctors are exactly the wrong age to fight off this virus themselves at this time. Are we going to kill them off prematurely? The best approach on the Big Island is to set up a centralized medical hospital on the military base at Mauna Kea. All coronavirus testing should be directed there along with any patients. Keep this contagious virus away from our critically short staffed hospitals and already compromised population. The military has access to lots of federal funds, resources, supplies and young, healthy recruits who could be trained to give tests -they have tests that give "while you wait" results available for shipment from an FDA approved California manufacturer in another week. All positives should be immediately quarantined, either in a federal facility away from the general population or fitted with an ankle bracelet and sent home with monitoring, ordered to return every week until they test negative. The positives must be separated from the healthy population right away. The sick need to be treated in field hospitals where the young staff does not go home and infect other members of the community. This virus requires a coordinated federal response for which they are trained as if it was a major earthquake or natural disaster. This virus is not a civilian medical problem. It is a federal problem. We need to create a centralized "coronavirus hospital" at the base of Mauna Kea and prepare for impact. Right now! Call your contacts in the military/national guard and get them ready to go. Mayor Kim is absolutely correct in not shutting down entire our island economy. If you have to reassure residents, stopping interisland flights could be helpful since there is community spread on Oahu and Kauai. However it is economic suicide for every single person if you shut down an entire state. We had a thriving American economy and it will be a major hit to stop flights,but that is sensible. Taking the next step would be like cutting our wrists. It is not advisable. What IS advisable is to announce a coordinated plan, move testing to a centralized location and get the local hospitals out of the line of fire. They can't handle this,they never could. It is a virus that needs a federal military response to a major natural disaster. Your job is to reassure the public, try to reverse widespread panic and have a logical, organized plan funded with the federal resources in this state. Please order the new "results while you wait" coronavirus test coming out from Cepheid in California-there may be other versions of the fast field test available now too. Prepare to monitor all the positive infected with "at home ankle bracelets" (and a$5000 fine if they leave home) and set up to quarantine them as fast as you can. That will flatten the curve. Remember, this IS a new common cold virus. It is here to stay and eventually it will become just another of the five we already have. And just another of the 100 ways humans can get pneumonia. I used to think there was one pneumonia virus and like a responsible senior, I dutifully got my two vaccines. Then I got pneumonia! When I complained, the doctor at Mayo Clinic said, "well there are 100 different types of pneumonia" --this new virus is joining the group It is not going to go away and is here to stay. It is a common cold virus, very contagious and hardy. Researchers in China admitted it is "tricky".... The media and your job really needs to calm down the public by educating them about the common cold and viral pneumonia and quit calling it the flu! The only thing this virus -which is a single stand mutating RNA -has in common with the flu is that it mutates. Which means a vaccine is going to be seasonal, if they ever manage to develop a vaccine for the latest common cold! My suggestion is throw a billion dollars at building centralized medical facilities on each island in this state - and forget about a vaccine for a rapidly mutating common cold virus. Save federal money going to pursue a mutating common cold virus and apply it to saving real lives on the ground- and keeping our economy going at the same time. Reassure the general public with a concrete plan marshall federal resources - and hire private contractors to help construct a hospital at the base of Mauna Kea. Centralizing the effect will be efficient, get the contagious away from the healthy and be best for the island economy. We cannot beat this virus - but our residents and businesses can survive it with cool heads and organization. Thank you for considering Dr. Miller's link and email comments. They are worth your consideration. Sincerely, Carol Williams Kohala Ranch Forwarded message From: Philip Lee Miller<drmiller@antiaging.com> Date: Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 7:28 PM Subject: Real scenarios To: Carol Williams <carol@photograp.hywest.com> Aloha Carol, Here's the exposition I have been looking for. A very sobering look at real scenarios. This is not a flippant argument. It is well:thought out by distinguished epidemiologists. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/21/facing-covid-19-reality-national- lockdown-is-no-cure/#comments-wrapper I think the really sobering and frightful truth is this. How do we extinguish or fight massive wild fires? We don't. They eventually burnout because the weather changes or it simply runs out of fuel. That is somewhat the thesis of the great Rene Dubois in the Mirage of Health. There is a middle way. Allow some level of commerce based on probability statistics. my best, Phil California Age Management Institute www.antiaging.com blog.antiaging.com (highly suggested read)