The most vulnerable must be most cautious

The federal and Illinois state governments have issued social distancing and stay-at-home directives to slow the spread of COVID-19 among the general population and, especially, those of us deemed to be most vulnerable to being infected and requiring hospitalization. Included in that group of vulnerable citizens are those with heart conditions, lung disease, immunodeficiencies, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, liver disease and severe obesity. Also included are people 65 years old or older.

As the CDC has collected more COVID-19 patient data, it's becoming apparent that younger, healthy citizens (i.e., those without underlying conditions) that contract the disease rarely require hospitalization and, even more rarely, expire from the disease or its complications. While the disease has proven to be as infectious as predicted, it has not proven to be as deadly to the general population as the models predicted earlier, before data could replace assumptions. In Italy, the mortality rate for people with no underlying conditions was only 0.13%.

That bodes well for younger, healthy Americans. They need to return to work soon with the knowledge that the virus will likely continue to spread but that their chances of avoiding hospitalization and worse are good and improving every day. It's this group of younger, healthy citizens that has been ordered to sacrifice the most for the rest of us in the vulnerable groups.

Those of us in the vulnerable groups must assume responsibility for our health, take the necessary precautions to protect ourselves from the unknown, asymptomatic carriers and remove the onus of our protection from healthy Americans. If we don't protect ourselves, then we may find ourselves vying for the same ICU beds and ventilators. Vulnerable citizens not able to assume responsibility for their health will continue to rely on their caregivers and families to protect them.

Randy Harris

Campton Hills