Massachusetts General’s CEO Peter Slavin saw the COVID pandemic coming but now he sees hope, risk
Updated Mar 11, 2021;
This article first appeared on the Boston Business Journal’s
.
On Feb. 27, 2020, as Boston bustled with its usual workday hum, Massachusetts General Hospital President Peter Slavin’s level of concern over the coronavirus pandemic then ravaging China was at a six out of 10.
Preparations at the hospital had kicked into overdrive, because Slavin knew the hospital’s background in infectious disease would mean the hospital would be called upon to help the U.S. response. At the Boston Business Journal’s Health Care Power Breakfast, he explained how the flu, with its 0.1% mortality rate, kills approximately 50,000 people in the U.S. annually. In Wuhan, coronavirus had a mortality rate that was likely from five to 20 times higher.