I had a conversation yesterday about an old colleague of mine, white guy, early 40's living in the mid-west. It's a scary reminder of what the LONG term consequences of #coronavirus will be even as the Trump administration rushes to pre-maturely #ReOpenAmerica

40-something married professional white guy had been doing all the right things during #coronavirus . He lives with his wife who, as a cancer survivor, had a compromised immune system and his elderly mother in law. They'd been in #selfquarantine for months just to be safe

Somehow he contracted #coronavirus . Must've been on a rare trip to the grocery or drug store. He didn't go anywhere else. It got bad quickly, breathing difficulties put him on a ventilator. He managed to survive #Covid_19 but in many ways that's where the real challenge starts

We hear stories about #coronavirus causing blood clots and strokes that kill or cripple. My colleague had so many clots in his lungs that it damaged critical tissue. His lung capacity has been reduced by almost 30% and he's in his early 40's. There is no 'cure' for that

What this means is that he, in his early 40's now gets winded walking from the store to his car in the parking lot. He has to catch his breath walking up stairs in his home. At 42 he now has the lung capacity of an 80 year old life-long smoker thanks to #coronavirus

There will be hundreds of thousands of men and women like my former colleague. People in their 30's and 40's who physically survive #Covid_19 but with long term health difficulties that will burden them and our healthcare system long before our current infrastructure expects

I don't want to end this with a pithy #StayHome because that's a given. I say this to encourage us to push our current candidates and elected officials to consider radical changes to healthcare to protect a generation of people who will face lingering effects of #Covid_19

#coronavirus is likely to be the Polio of our generation. It might get cured, but the long term effects will be with us for years, and we have to get serious now about what healthcare in that world will have to look like