Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Suggests 8-Week Shutdown

The United States must have a countrywide shelter-in-place order that could be kept in place "probably for eight weeks," Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the White House adviser for health policy under former President Barack Obama, said Monday. 

"What we're seeing today reflects what happened two weeks ago," Emanuel said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We're going to have to keep this in place probably for eight weeks. There is just no alternative to that. Even when we get to the top of the curve, you can't ease up. So, you know, you have to wait to come down."

Emanuel added that President Donald Trump had been told about the idea of locking down the country "weeks ago."

"We definitely need to break it down," Emanuel said. "On the physical distancing, we definitely have to have the country shelter in place. We definitely need to close restaurants, close schools, close all social gatherings, cancel events, especially things like spring break in Florida where you had the sort of Petri plate with revelers and elderly people."

Even in China, where there was a much more severe lockdown, it still took 8 weeks for the numbers of people testing positive for coronavirus to start coming down, said Emanuel. 

"That's what we have to do," said Emanuel. "People have to understand that. And people have to be, you know, encouraged and told that that's the way. You need strict enforcement of that."

The United States also must distribute the equipment health workers need, said Emanuel. 

"One thing China did is it flooded the province with all sorts of ventilators, doctors, and other things and we're not doing that," said Emanuel, calling for masks to be redistributed to hotspots in states such as New York, California, and Washington. 

Emanuel also called for testing centers so that doctors and nurses can care for patients instead, and to take doctors out of retirement while keeping doctors who have visas in the United States. 

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