Shut down the country and start over to contain Covid-19, US medical experts urge political leaders

More than 150 prominent US medical experts, scientists, teachers, nurses and others have signed a letter urging political leaders to shut down the country and start over to contain the surging coronavirus pandemic. “The best thing for the nation is not to reopen as quickly as possible, it’s to save as many lives as possible,” they wrote in the document, which was sent Thursday to the Trump administration, leading members of Congress and state governors. “Right now, we are on a path to lose more than 200,000 American lives by November 1st. Yet, in many states people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get a tattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but non-essential activities.”
Their recommendations come as the United States crossed the 4 million mark on Thursday, with at least 4,028,741 cases of coronavirus and 144,072 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s count.
Covid-19 “will end up as a Top 10 leading cause of death” this year, statisticians from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted in a Thursday email to CNN.
Although the CDC cannot start ranking leading causes of deaths until the end of the year — in order to get a full year’s worth of data — agency statisticians at the agency said they expect Covid-19 will end up among the Top 10 leading causes of death in the nation.
Heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death in the US, accounting for more than half of all US deaths each year, and the statisticians don’t expect that to change.