Jews in the D
26 | SEPTEMBER 3 • 2020
W
hen Dr. Aaron Milstone, origi-
nally of Lathrup Village, started
to see COVID-19 cases rise in his
current home of Tennessee back in March,
he knew the state’
s government would have
to act fast to contain an outbreak.
Milstone, a pulmonary critical care
physician based in Franklin, and another
Nashville-area doctor felt a stay-at-home
order would help the state keep the virus at
bay. But Tennessee’
s Republican Governor
Bill Lee wasn’
t keen on mandating one.
Milstone and his friend realized they had an
uphill battle ahead of them.
“We knew on the front end that we were
probably going to get into a quagmire with
all of this,
” Milstone told the Jewish News.
The pair set up an online petition urging
Gov. Lee to issue a stay-at-home order in
Tennessee, figuring they’
d need to get 100-
200 doctors to sign it before sending it to
the governor. By the next morning, though,
they already had signatures of 500 medical
professionals from across the state.
“It was internists. It was family practi-
tioners. There were gynecologists on there.
There were pathologists on there. And the
one unifying theme was that we needed
a stay-at-home mandate for the state of
Tennessee,
” Milstone said.
In less than a week, the petition had gar-
nered over 2,000 signatures, and Milstone
got the Tennessee Medical Association and
other medical organizations to support their
cause, too. Local media outlets began to take
notice of Milstone’
s efforts, and when the
petition was opened up to non-doctors, over
35,000 Tennesseans signed on in support of
a stay-at-home order in less than a week. But
Gov. Lee would not commit to the order.
Soon Milstone’
s local media attention
turned into international media attention.
He began doing interviews with CNN,
Forbes, Bloomberg and MSNBC. His
team was mentioned in newspapers in San
Francisco, Missouri and London.
When still no change had been made,
Milstone reached out to Bill Frist, a former
Tennessee senator and a doctor himself.
Frist, a Republican, signed the petition and
on April 9, Milstone’
s team held a press con-
ference to announce the development. Later
that same day, Gov. Lee announced that
Tennessee would be under a stay-at-home
order.
“We end up with this ragtag bunch of
doctors and pharmaceutical reps and may-
ors and a couple teenagers,
” he said of the
team he worked with on the campaign.
“It’
s just an incredible story of how a team
of people that had never been associated
with one another in anything like this came
together to be able to … create change.
“Unfortunately,
” Milstone said, “the story
doesn’
t end there.
”
NOT ENOUGH
Tennessee’
s stay-at-home order lasted about
three weeks, and Milstone said it decreased
the amount of COVID-19 cases in the state
dramatically. His team issued a series of
press releases warning against opening too
quickly, but by the end of April, much of the
state began to reopen without social distanc-
ing or proper safety precautions.
“Basically, we realize that, despite being
able to turn down the volume for a month
and a half, we have more work to be done,
”
Milstone said.
His team is now urging the Tennessee
government to issue a mask mandate.
Gov. Lee has been unwilling to require
masks in public so far, despite urging from
Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House
Coronavirus Response Taskforce and the
Tennessee attorney general stating that a
mandate would be constitutional.
Milstone and his team are currently hold-
ing press conferences and organizing people
to write letters to the governor in favor of a
mask mandate.
“It’
s just a very difficult time for every-
body. But [masks are] such a simple fix. It’
s
such a juxtaposition to Gretchen Whitmer,
”
he said, referencing Michigan’
s Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer, who issued an exec-
utive order requiring masks in Michigan’
s
enclosed public spaces at the end of April.
Tennessee has seen nearly 125,000 cases of
the virus this year, while over 98,000 have
been logged in Michigan.
Milstone moved to Tennessee in 1994 for
his medical residency, but he grew up in
Lathrup Village and attended medical school
at Wayne State University. His father used
to be a fundraiser for the Jewish Welfare
Foundation and, though his parents now live
in Florida, he still has family in the Metro
Detroit area. During the pandemic, missing
Michigan has taken on a new meaning for
Milstone.
“I think one of the interesting juxtapo-
sitions is just showing the demographic
data difference in terms of where we [in
Tennessee] are with the pandemic versus
Michigan. I would love to be Michigan,
”
Milstone said. “Michigan, to me, represents
what we should be.
”
In addition to his advocacy work,
Milstone has spent the pandemic working
directly with COVID-19 patients.
“In practicing medicine for 25 years, I
personally have never seen anything quite
like this,
” he said. “I’
ve never seen anything
so communicative — so easy to catch. And
I’
ve never seen something that picks certain
people to make them really sick and picks
other people to cause no symptoms what-
soever.
”
But Milstone remains optimistic that the
virus will eventually be contained across the
globe through better treatments and viable
vaccines.
“I think that that with time and effort, we
will get better than where we are right now,
”
he said.
Mask Crusader
Doctor with Detroit roots fi
ghts for
better COVID precautions in Tennessee.
MAYA GOLDMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Dr. Aaron
Milstone