https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/science-says-its-time-to-start-easing-the-coronavirus-lockdowns/
Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford Medical Center.
The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been enormous, and New York has suffered more than anywhere else in the world. Compared as a separate country, the New York area would rank, by far, as No. 1 for deaths per capita.
The New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area accounts for approximately 60 percent of all US deaths. Theories abound, but the New York area itself is different: New York is the top port of entry for the hundreds of thousands of tourists coming to the US every month from China; Gotham has a uniquely high density of living that swells daily by millions from workers and tourists; and Manhattan sees some 1.6 million commuters daily, mostly on crowded public transit, including 320,000 from Jersey alone.
Yet the pandemic toll is falling, dramatically so in New York, including both hospitalizations and deaths per day. Few doubt that the unprecedented isolation policies had a significant impact on “flattening the curves.”
Now, we face another, even greater problem: how to sensibly re-enter normal life. This must be based on what we now know, not on worst-case projections, using facts and fundamental medical knowledge, not fear or single-vision policies.
First, we know the risk of dying from COVID-19 is far lower than initially thought, and not significant for the overwhelming majority of those infected.