Since long before any of us heard of COVID-19 (and before most of us heard of Anthony Fauci or Emily Landon), Chicago’s been home to a widely recognized infectious disease expert. He’s Gary Slutkin, the former University of Illinois epidemiologist best known for taking a look at the rampant killing on our streets and recognizing it, literally, as a plague.
Gary Slutkin: The public messaging about this particular epidemic has been disastrous beyond the fact that there are different messages coming from the administration and the scientific community. The two main messages that were put forward early on that I think were both troublesome were bending the curve and opening up. Bending of the curve is halftime. The right goal is to stop the transmission and completely contain it. Go all the way down to near zero. This is a simple virus in a certain way, because it’s [effectively] human to human only. It’s not in the water, it’s not in mosquitoes. All you had to do is separate people.
In San Francisco they just went up to a positivity rate of 2.2 percent. And they’ve shut down their indoor dining. Same thing for New York—they’re now at a positivity rate of 2.7 percent, they shut down indoor dining. Chicago’s at 15 percent, and now they’re shutting down their indoor dining. Once the curve starts to move it moves faster and faster; you have to jump on things, because once you’re behind, you get more and more behind.
