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Why Did We Treat Coronavirus So Differently Than Other Epidemics?
A three-column article in the local daily recently revealed the alarming news that Arizona State Sen. Lupe Contreras and members of his family had tested positive for the coronavirus. I wish Sen. Contreras and his family well. He seems like a good guy. But in a sane world without the hyperbolic, breathless press treatment of all matters coronavirus, the headline would read “state senator and family get the flu“ which, of course, isn’t a news story at all.
Nothing remarkable here, folks, just another among the countless attempts of the media to convince us that Wuhan flu is vastly more threatening than any other health challenges faced in the past. Yes, viral epidemics are nasty. People get sick and die. But compared with others America has faced in its history, this virus is worse than some, not as lethal as others.
Regrettably, the media blitz has succeeded. The virus may not be the most destructive of all time, but the panic-driven reaction to it could be the worst public-health blunder in our history.
The Spanish flu following WWI was far more severe than COVID-19. At least 50 million people died worldwide, 675,000 in the US, or roughly 10 times the COVID-19 tallies. Worse, mortality extended to all age groups including those under five and previously healthy people.
Americans practiced basic preventive measures but didn’t destroy the economy. The rapid comeback produced the Roaring Twenties.
A more apt comparison would be the Hong Kong flu (obviously named by xenophobic racists) of 1968-69. This illness, like COVID-19, was highly contagious, had the ability to mutate, was fatal mostly for the elderly and already ill, and most infected people didn’t get that sick.
Hong Kong flu killed over 100,000 Americans, then with a population of 200 million. Yet Americans didn’t freak out. Schools stayed open since children weren’t in serious danger.
Again, common-sense measures to avoid exposure to the virus, sanitize hands and surfaces, and protect the vulnerable were taken. But there was no lockdown, people went to work, and life pretty much went on.
Is it possible, as experts claim, that COVID-19 has produced fewer fatalities because of the self-imposed lockdowns? In a word, no. There was never any evidence that lockdowns reduced overall death rates and now that we have some experience, it is becoming clear that lockdowns at best change only the timing of fatalities.
A recent study looked at how soon states went into lockdown after reaching the threshold of one death per million. Although lockdowns are still touted by the “experts,” the data clearly showed that whether states locked down early, late, or not at all had no effect on death rates.
Fortunately, as Sweden is demonstrating to the world, certain characteristics of the coronavirus render it vulnerable to herd immunity. Most people that develop immunity don’t get that sick, vulnerable populations are easily identified, and the others are almost totally protected.
Under newly calculated death rate determinations, people aged 18 to 45 have a death rate of 0.01% while for those under five, the death rate is effectively zero. Meanwhile, of 8,000 NYC deaths investigated, 99.2% had identifiable underlying conditions.
This means that, rather than hectoring productive workers to “stay home!“ (and then showering them with handouts for not working), it makes more sense to allow them to work and keep the economy alive with suitable protections for the vulnerable. That would allow herd immunity to develop. Our one-size-fits-all lockdown strategy resulted in a double whammy: economic devastation and the prospect of more infections and deaths due to lack of herd immunity.
Whether we can recover from this national nightmare and reclaim our free and prosperous nation depends on what we have learned and how we change. Will we realize that life is worth the risk and that avoiding pain and death is not always possible? Will we learn to resist groupthink and media sensationalizing? Will we become more future-oriented and responsible for the well-being of Americans yet to come?
We have to do better or go down in history as the generation that let the American experiment fail.
Published in Economics, Healthcare
I don’t think it is possible to fully protect them. But I think it is as likely to be effective as anything else. You can’t protect all the vulnerable, but there is more we could do with respect to nursing homes and that would be beneficial.
True, there is a balance. But I think that if you remove those cases where covid was not really the primary cause of death, this virus looks a whole lot different. Let me again use the example of nursing homes. Nursing home deaths make up a huge amount of covid deaths. With people in nursing homes, “comorbidities” aren’t like your fat uncle or your diabetic friend… there are usually many, and they are usually quite serious. Not to mention loneliness and depression. Not everyone in a nursing home is like this, but the majority are, and not everyone in a nursing home who catches covid is dying of it, either. I do think that is important to consider. Again, I’ll reference the town where I live. Highest per-capita infection rate in the state of WA (which, by the way, had this virus pretty early). 52 deaths, and 51 of those with serious underlying conditions. I don’t know the updated statistic, but when I last looked, all but 8 were nursing home deaths. That paints a much, much different picture than what is driving this panic. No, it doesn’t tell the whole story, and no, it doesn’t mean you can write this off entirely, but it is important to recognize.
One thing to remember about “cytokine storm” is that it is not unique to this virus. It is the cause of death in younger patients with flu. Also, this is a new version of corona virus but there are others and there was work on a vaccine for SARS but it was dropped when the virus burnt out in 2004.
I wonder if the social distancing, masks, lockdowns, executive overreach, etc… will be dropped when this thing burns out in the Summer of 2020?
Somehow I doubt it.
I also doubt it. Once the tyrants and their legion of Karens gets power, they won’t give it back easily.
Burns out? You mean kills up to 200K Americans?
I mean burns out.
A difference w/o distinction to the dead
to answer the titular question:
1.) Soy boys
2.) massive media consolidation into NYC which is a filthy and disgusting place that should be daily thanking the good lord that they don’t have a regular victorian london-esque cholera outbreak.
Unlikely. However, padding the statistics with “presumed” cases might get the totals close.
#40 MichaelKennedy
This ICU doc’s essay suggests that there’s actually undercounting: He notes that there’s a nontrivial number of people who get ill at home but don’t recognize that what they have is Wuhan Virus — accordingly, they decide against going to the ER and thus unintentionally condemn themselves to death at home; what I note in conjunction with this is that such decedents’ bodies retrieved from their homes are rarely if ever autopsied — ergo, the Wuhan Virus causation is not established and accordingly not reflected in the statistics.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/08/icu-doctor-what-i-wish-people-knew-about-coronavirus/
Incidentally, please note that the author clearly favors finding a way to end the various lockdowns, albeit in a process that consciously strives to balance the competing/clashing risks involved.
A counter argument is that they are dying anyway. Are we really saving those vulnerable with our lockdown?
Outside of New York, which apparently isn’t releasing nursing home deaths, it is nursing homes and assisted living facilities that are getting a majority of the deaths.
What’s particularly significant about that is these are people who are already isolated. They should be easy to protect.
Not really at all. It is a disease that can and does result in death for some people. There is nobody denying that fact.
I have heard this, and I have also heard that we are greatly overcounting deaths. Here is an example. In the past few weeks, my wife and I have both had things where we would ordinarily go have a dr check it out, but the offices are closed. Mild stuff, but still, the offices are closed.
There are many people who simply don’t have access to medical care right now, or who are scared to go in. Some of those people will die of easily preventable things. You’re saying “oh, they must’ve had wuflu,” but that is not a reasonable assumption. We are finding that basic medical care is important, and that shutting it all down to focus on just one thing will have some pretty negative consequences.
None of the measures you support were ever intended to stop covid from killing people. The goal was to spread deaths out, and that has proven to be misguided. Pointing out that people die from this is dishonest. What you’re supporting does not save anyone at all, it just delays the death. In fact, I am saying that lockdowns will result in vastly more death… So if anything, I should maybe be accusing you of being flippant about death. But that wouldn’t really be fair, would it? It’s a stupid way to avoid argument by questioning motive. Liberals love to engage in those cheap rhetorical tricks, and they drive much of the AGW/healthcare/free-college debates.
And you know this how? There is no good proof that the COVID deaths are being “padded”-if anything it is underestimated. The excess of deaths the last 6 weeks vs expected is mainly d/t to COVID. And the excess deaths outnumber the deaths officially blamed on COVID by a fair amount. One would expect the death rate during a lockdown to DECLINE initially (if there was no pandemic)-but it is up. Eventually the death rate will rise d/t economic effects (recessions lead to more deaths-but not right away) and to delayed medical therapies-but again that is delayed. The news is not good out west- the R0 has risen recently in the Pacific Northwest and that is w/o a significant reopening. Almost everyone involved expects things to get worse with reopening than they currently are-especially if people don’t maintain social distancing and relax their guard (no masks, large groups etc). We better pray that the heat & sunlight help and we get some better therapies before the fall. In the meantime we need to maintain some of the restrictions in place-but not so many that the economy craters. I don’t think routinely accepting >1000 deaths/wk in order to not wear a mask & resume “normal” is an acceptable tradeoff.
Frankly mistaken- the lockdowns were to flatten the curve- which means both lower the number of deaths (by preventing the overwhelming of the medical system as occurred in Wuhan & No Italy) and to spread them out. But spreading out the deaths itself could easily lead to fewer deaths – b/c we hopefully learn how to care for the sick better over time(not to mention we might develop better anti-viral drugs and vaccines given enough time). Additionally, spreading out the peak gave us time to open up more ICU beds, as well as obtain more PPE & ventilators. That would save people’s lives-& it shows-our death rate is well below much of Europe-probably b/c the socialized European healthcare systems typically have far fewer ICU beds than the US. This was well known before the lockdowns started- in fact there was debate over whether we could flatten the curve enough to make any difference (ie bring the case load down enough to not overwhelm the healthcare system). The US was best positioned to gain from the lockdowns b/c we have the most ICU beds/capita in the world so that we were most likely to keep the peak below the systems threshold of failure. [note I said ICU beds- some socialized medical systems have a large # of “hospitals beds” – but they are essentially hotel rooms- they exist mainly for political not medical reasons]
not rhetorical tricks- just medical knowledge-rhetorical tricks are for lawyers not physicians- in my field I am not paid to talk-I am paid to take actions & make my best judgement of what is optimal for my patient-I literally almost never have billed for talking with anyone
Now you are coupling ad hominem with lies. What sort of physician are you? Do tell…
We never had overwhelmed hospitals. There is much reason to believe our actions did not have any meaningful effect on that.
I don’t think that actions taken in March were necessarily terrible, given the facts we had (or lacked) in March.
But you are still arguing based on March knowledge, and that is a problem. Today’s facts do not support the doubling down on yesterday’s actions.
I apologize if you felt it was personally directed. Not meant as an ad hominem- lawyers do need rhetorical devices to convince -it is part of their profession-rhetoric is not a perjorative term-in fact it was one of the foundations of classical education. But lawyers do tend to overestimate the importance of rhetoric as well as underestimate the necessity of a firm grounding in a discipline in order to acquire judgment. I am presenting the facts as they existed-flattening the curve was meant to save lives- directly & by “buying” time. I do not advocate keeping the lockdowns- but also believe that we need to judiciously reopen. The fact that we weren’t overwhelmed isn’t proof that it wouldn’t have happened w/o the steps taken. NYC was close to the edge & we don’t want to be there. The next month or so is a critical time and we need to make decisions with a clear understanding of the risk. We need to resuscitate the economy while not exacerbating the pandemic. Almost all expert opinion advocates maintained social distancing, masks, and phased reopening. The data we have, while limited, clearly favors such an approach. One should not simply discount those opinions lightly-experts are far from always right but they are generally good on narrowly framed issues in their fields.
Michael Levitt mentioned that covid deaths with co-morbidities should be counted as 0.1 or 0.3
It’s deceiving to attribute covid as the 100% cause of death
Somebody seems to be hoping for more deaths to validate uninformed opinions.
I do not simply have a personal distaste for masks. I’ve read and heard many experts who no not recommend masks outside very specific uses. In fact, I’ve read far more experts of that opinion than those recommending masks. It is how I came to that conclusion.
Here is one example (it’s in German, but you can choose to read it in English):
https://infekt.ch/2020/04/atemschutzmasken-fuer-alle-medienhype-oder-unverzichtbar/
I do not simply have a personal distaste for masks. I’ve read and heard many experts who no not recommend masks outside very specific uses. In fact, I’ve read far more experts of that opinion than those recommending masks. It is how I came to that conclusion.
Here is one example (it’s in German, but you can choose to read it in English):
https://infekt.ch/2020/04/atemschutzmasken-fuer-alle-medienhype-oder-unverzichtbar/
Also- my argument is that wearing masks saves zero lives. Not that it is not worth saving thousands. Big difference, there.
Studies coming out over the last few days indicate that over 50% of all cases of COVID infections have to do with people getting it while sheltering at home. Most likely this indicates that the virus was already rampantly being spread about inside our society, before any shelter at home edicts came about. Plus most of us have become aware that the average person having a COVID infection has a mild case of it.
The mild mannered but thoughtful doctor from Sweden, his name is something like Gieselke – he keeps making the case that when you examine differences between the death rate in Norway, which locked down, against that of Sweden, which did not, one huge difference in the two countries is that in Norway, the nursing homes have fewer elderly per nursing home. While Sweden has more crowded nursing homes. Yet everyone who wants to appear “careful” about COVID overlooks the wisdom offered by yr info as well as that of Dr G.
Yes and no for vitamin D. It looks as though having vitamin D values at around 35 ng/ml is a good thing, especially if you’re older.
Zinc and probably selenium supplementation is probably a good idea as well.
Zinc: In a trial using HCQ and azithromycin with and without zinc (5o mg/d as zinc sulfate,)
As mentioned here, “chloroquine helps get zinc into the cells” is probably not the mechanism of any beneficial action of HCQ.
Test plasma zinc, optimum values are probably about 1000 µg/ml.
Test plasma or serum selenium; shoot for values between
The weight of opinion & data is against you-as I stated before the best data is masks reduce the spread of similar pathogens-and no good studies show they don’t work for SARS-CoV-2. But if you search hard enough you can find “experts” that echo (rather than prove) your opinion-like those 2 “ER” docs from Bakersfield (who in fact aren’t experts and aren’t even ER docs). Masks are one of our best bets to safely reopen-the whole goal right now. Until we have better weapons (& data)we should use what we have. Another interesting model to look at -https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/05/09/model-universal-mask-wearing-reduce-infection-indefinite-lockdowns/
These studies show very little-
1) Vit D deficiency is very common.
2) since a large portion of the country has shelter at home type mandates, many people who get COVID will necessarily be people who are sheltering at home. Additionally, since the quarantine isn’t really strict, people will get it despite the lockdown-just at a lower rate then if there was no lockdown.
it will require significantly more elucidation to determine if these studies show anything.
If the weight of opinion is against me, it is public opinion, reliable as that is.
As for medical opinion, I have heard far more arguing against masks than for them.
Here is a guy who takes a look at actual studies:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340570735_Masks_Don't_Work_A_review_of_science_relevant_to_COVID-19_social_policy
Regardless, perhaps the worst human tendency with respect to problem solving is to say “don’t just stand there, do something!” It is looking for our keys where the light is good, and some would have the government require us all to gather under the street light.