Over the past couple of weeks several people have sent me articles, YouTube videos and editorials whose purpose is to question the data on COVID-19 or the country’s response to it.
I have tried to read and watch all of these and in most cases to respond directly regarding the questions raised. At this point I thought it might be valuable to make some generic comments on what is being discussed.
FIRST
“The data is wrong, there are actually far less deaths than have been reported.”
I have discussed this in the past, so I will not go into details here, but a few points are appropriate. As pointed out by my cousin Sally Beer, NOBODY dies of COVID. The virus does not kill anyone, it isn’t listed as the cause of death on the death certificate. Pneumonia, heart failure, stroke, organ failure, hypoxia, etc. are the causes of death. This is exactly the same as someone dying of “cancer”. The cancer doesn’t kill them, organ failure or some other complication associated with the growth of the cancer does. The same is true here. I have diabetes. I intend to live quite a long time managing my disease. However, if I were to become infected with COVID-19, I would have a significant chance of dying because of the underlying weakness in my system.
The gun does not kill you, the bullet does; but without the gun you would not have died.
SECOND
“R0 is incorrect.”
This argument goes, that the statistics of the rate of infection are incorrectly monitored, that the actual infection rate, and therefore the contagiousness of the virus is actually not very high, more comparable to the Flu. Maybe, maybe not, but totally irrelevant. The actual R0 varies based on the situation in which it is measured. If you measure a group of people who are self-isolating, wearing masks and keeping social distance, the measured R0 will be much lower than if you measure a group of people attending weddings and restaurants with no protection.
In this case, qualitative observations are instructive.
One person, infected, who attends a Jewish wedding in New Rochelle infects dozens.
One case in a nursing home results in over half of the residents becoming infected and dozens of deaths.
One case in a prison infects the majority of prisoners
One case in a meat-packing plant results in hundreds of infections and multiple deaths.
One infected employee in a hair salon infects hundreds of people.
This virus is very contagious. Period.
The strongest indication of the contagiousness of the virus is that after the first case was reported in this country, it only took a month before there was a documented case in EVERY COUNTY in the entire country.
THIRD
“It is time to reopen the economy.”
Here is the current data:
The Gray area is the data for the entire country. The Yellow area has that data with the numbers from New York removed.
I have added trendlines for both based on the decreasing deaths seen throughout the country. As you can see, if you project those decreases forward, you would see that we could actually come down to ZERO deaths by around July 4. This US projection results in an additional 10,000 deaths between today and July 7.
This is what MIGHT occur if we were to continue everything that we had been doing 2 weeks ago. We could have reached a virtual elimination of deaths in 6 weeks, absorbing an additional 10,000 deaths.
BUT WE HAVEN’T DONE THAT
Instead, in many parts of the country we have adapted actions much more comparable to those we had on March 22. We are encouraged to go back to work, church, beaches and parks. Many of us are going without masks and not keeping social distances. What will happen?
After the lag, who thinks that we will continue to follow the trend lines?
Who thinks the curve will begin to move back up?
The apparent tacit conclusion of our government is that we need to open everything up, get everyone out and about and absorb the deaths that will ultimately occur because that is the only way to get to herd immunity quickly. The assumption seems to be that these actions will only result in a couple of hundred thousand new deaths, and that is simply the cost of the war. So, we hear the following arguments from the current administration and its mouthpieces in the media:
Masks are “advised” or “voluntary”. Wearing no mask is a sign of patriotism or rebellion against authority.
There will be deaths associated with remaining closed, so opening poses little or no additional risks.
The number of deaths from the virus is actually a lot lower than what is reported.
We have plenty of PPE and ventilators to take care of whosoever gets ill.
We have contingencies in place to stamp out any new spikes, or spurts, or hot spots.
98% or more people will easily survive this disease.
It is no worse than a bad season of flu.
Each of these points has a small kernel of truth, but the point of making them is to encourage people to get out, get infected and get on with life.
I expect that we will begin to hear pleadings from our government that “Now that the economy is back open, you should go out and shop, pray, eat, party and celebrate. It is your patriotic duty to do so.
If the government is correct, then we will see decreasing or at least constant levels of deaths over the summer. If they are not, we will see a surge in July. If that occurs and if the hospitals in the Southeast particularly are overrun, what will be the answer? That we “never knew this could happen”? That we “expected there to be some sacrifices from our ‘American Warriors’”? That we “could have had many more deaths if we hadn’t done what we did”?
Sacrificing Americans on the altar of political expediency is never an ethical strategy.