Reopening the country without appropriate protective gear and strategies will endanger lives more than is necessary. For those who choose this, such as the Michigan protesters, it is their risk decision to make, although it will also recklessly endanger others. For those who don’t choose this, such as the nation’s medical workers, it is exploitive and unfair to expect them to put their lives on the line without appropriate protection. The government will be sending them to their execution. Medical workers should stay home for their own safety unless the government can provide them the protection science says they need and what they deserve. With such protection, some may still get sick, but at least we will know we’ve done the best we can while we remain deeply grateful for their service.
The correct reopening logic is simple: reopen with appropriate protection or reopen irresponsibly without protection but also without a medical mop-up force.
“Appropriate protection” includes a sufficient supply of PPE so medical workers can follow the safety protocols they were taught along with available/actual testing sufficient to allow contact tracing with enforceable quarantine requirements of positive cases, including asymtomatics.
One might argue that a medical worker strike is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath. Ethicists must ask if deliberate endangerment due to purely political and financial interest with knowledgeable disregard for health safety requirements justifies such action. Undoubtedly there will be medical individuals willing to sacrifice themselves to help others under any circumstances, but are we as a society willing to say it should be institutionalized when there is a safer alternative?