Minimizing Collateral Damage from COVD-19 Distancing Strategies: Protecting Patients who have Multi-Morbidity

Most epidemiologic models project that only a small fraction of the world’s billion people who have “multi-morbidity” (i.e., three or more chronic health conditions) [1] will succumb to COVID-19-induced mortality. Many more multi-morbid people, most of whom are older, are vulnerable to incurring “collateral damage,” i.e., deterioration and death as a result of “social-distancing” and other pandemic control strategies that are likely to continue until a vaccine becomes widely available (in mid-2021 at the earliest) [2].