Spring is in the air. Not that many years ago my thoughts would be turning to the fresh smells of flowers blooming and freshly cut grass, longer days and getting back on the bike for long rides with friends on country roads. Today, as spring approaches, I am afraid to take a deep breath for fear of what the air might bring with it beyond pollen. I wonder how soon life will start returning to normal, and when we can return to our practices and see routine patients. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be any time soon.

I am not pessimistic, I am just being realistic. As I think back over the past few months it seems pretty clear that we took a wrong turn a while ago, and finding our way back will not be easy. Truth is, as a country we were not prepared for what should have been obvious. Most of the world wasn’t, but I expected more from us. Feel free to blame whoever you want, but I see this as primarily a major failure of our once top-of-class CDC. China can certainly share in some of the blame, as they clearly buried much of the truth along with their dead, but the seriousness of the situation should have been clearly evident in Atlanta by late 2019. I’ve visited China many times and the well-being of their citizens never struck me as a priority for the Chinese government. Their leadership’s willingness to sacrifice a good part of their economy to stop the spread should have been taken as a chilling warning of what was to come.

Social distancing and largescale closures of schools and businesses have become our new normal, but they are also an economic suicide strategy. It is a last resort that I suspect could have been avoided in the US and many Western countries. Had most of the world outside of Wuhan gotten a jump on COVID-19 and implemented proven infection control strategies like mask wearing, early and extensive testing, and contact tracking protocols, the rapid spread of this very contagious airborne virus could have been limited, and thousands of lives and billions of dollars saved. But the sad and bitter truth is, we were caught with our pants down, and the CDC, FDA and the Surgeon General lied to cover it up. We can’t undo what has already been done. The question is, now where do we go from here?

The answer, oddly, is quite simple. At this point, for us to be totally free of a scourge that cruelly kills 5% or more of those it infects, we have to retrace our steps and get them right this time. If we wait for a vaccine, it will be too late. If we wait for a cure, it may never come. So, for clinicians involved in direct clinical care, interacting with patients with close contact in small rooms, we will need PPE. Start thinking about that now.

Arthur B. Epstein, OD, FAAO Chief Medical Editor artepstein@optometricphysician.com