Novel Coronavirus and Old Lessons - Preparing the Health System for the Pandemic

Abstract

How sad that the people who remember the last major pandemic — influenza in 1968 — are the primary victims of today’s. How sad that despite the many medical advances that have been made since then — critical care, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), emergency medicine, and emergency medical services, to name a few — the treatments offered to many patients in areas where Covid-19 has exploded are the same ones they might have received in that era. Perhaps the lessons they remember, those of quarantine, isolation, and social distancing, are the ones that will save us again.