Closures work. Continue them

Re “Trump may ease restrictions,” March 24

President Trump has said that Americans will have to make sacrifices so we can control the coronavirus pandemic. I, along with my fellow musicians and entertainers, have just done that and probably won’t be seeing any income for six months to a year.

Now, the president wants to do this halfway by possibly easing restrictions, making the sacrifices of all of us worthless.

It is not as if there haven’t been successful examples of virus suppression that have come before us. What we need is to test as many people as possible and to buckle down.

Our country can do this. We just need a good leader. Cynthia Moussas

South Pasadena

I am in the category of people that has the highest risk of dying from COVID-19. Despite this, I think continuing the current shutdown of our economy is pure insanity.

The average age of people dying in Italy from COVID-19 is more than 80. The correct path forward is obvious: Trump should put the country back to work quickly and, in return, ask all Americans to act responsibly.

The vast majority of people at work who are infected will recover. People like me should be asked to shelter in place and be especially careful. We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.

It’s a small risk to take for the good of the rest of the country. William R. Fado

Pacific Palisades

Please do not be fooled by those who contrast the tens of thousands of Americans killed by influenza each year to the hundreds killed by the current pandemic and claim that we are overreacting and that it’s somehow safe to return to work. They are truly comparing apples to oranges.

While accurate, those statistics represent the final tally after a strain of influenza has completely run its course. COVID-19 is just barely getting started.

If, with its high contagiousness and frightening morbidity and mortality rate, the coronavirus infects a sizable portion of our population, overwhelming our hospital and healthcare system (think Italy and Spain) and causing several hundred thousand deaths, I sincerely doubt you will hear such comparisons anymore. Gary Garshfield, MD

Irvine

Consider this: The incubation period for COVID-19 is roughly five days. Each infected individual has been found to infect an average of 2.2 other people. Those 2.2 people, in five days, together infect 4.8 more people, and so on and so forth.

After one month, one infection can beget 113 more. If the mortality rate is about 1%, that means one infected person’s carelessness can result in one death.

Think about that. Richard Tuch, MD

Los Angeles

The suggested need to put the economy above health needs ignores an important factor: The economy can recover, but the dead cannot.

The Spanish flu pandemic, with millions dead, points up the fallacy of a “business as usual” approach. Harvey Grossman

Los Angeles