Libby Protects Those with Asbestos Disease from COVID-19

No town in America has a higher percentage of asbestos-related lung disease — and resulting respiratory issues — than Libby, Montana, making its population uniquely vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet no town has responded to the threat so effectively. The home of the longest-running man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history — the mining of toxic asbestos for 70 years — has refused to let COVID-19 dictate who lives and who dies. The Center for Asbestos Related Disease, also known as CARD, has stepped up and taken charge. “We can’t afford to let the virus get loose here because of the number of high-risk individuals we have,” Dr. Brad Black, medical director at CARD, told The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com. “You’re not going to stop it. We know that. It will go through your population, but we want to contain it. And I think we have, to this point.” COVID-19 Not Spreading in Libby Libby is the county seat of rural Lincoln County, where more than 3,000 residents — about 15% of the total population — have been diagnosed with respiratory diseases like mesothelioma that seriously compromise the immune system. They are of particular risk for coronavirus complications. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control, just seven people in Lincoln County have been diagnosed with COVID-19. The only fatality is a 70-year-old man who contracted the disease in California before returning to his vacation home in northwest Montana. The other six diagn...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Source Type: news