Covid19 is really something. Not something good, of course, but really something! It is very contagious, doctors say, but affects people in different ways, or not at all. Unlike flu epidemics to which we’ve grown accustomed, this virus didn’t go away when spring came. Some experts are saying it will never go away.
I know two very smart, well-educated women. One has “sheltered in place” since the start of the Covid pandemic, and is very worried about her children interacting with other people, even within their extended family. The other woman sees Covid as an over-hyped threat being used to make the country comfortable with excessive government control, and to tilt the coming election in favor of the Democrat party.
Could they both be part right and/or part wrong? I think so. Neither are disease experts, but when it comes to opinions about the corona virus, a lot of experts don’t agree either.
Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the CDC says ten times more people test positive for Covid19 antibodies than currently have the active disease. So, in essence, they’ve had the disease but didn’t know it. He speculates, however, that 92% to 95% of people could still be vulnerable to getting the disease.
Professor Karl Friston, a world-renowned neuro-scientist, used his command of statistical health data analysis to conclude that perhaps 80% of people (in the United Kingdom) have some sort of previous immunity, based on the slow progression of the spread of the virus. It might be in the form of some other viral immunity in their systems that blocks Covid. He says that if that’s the case, those people cannot get Covid.
So, between just those two studies, we can see that somewhere between 20% and 95% of people will get this virus. There are plenty more studies with differing conclusions, by the way.
At the end of May, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity found that, as of that time, 42% of Covid19 deaths had occurred in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities. That meant that 42% of the deaths came from 0.6% of the population. That is tragic, and terrible for the people who gave so much for us, only to be taken by a virus. Conversely, I guess that bodes well for 99.4% of us.
The epidemiological promised land of “herd immunity,” where, basically, the virus struggles to find new victims because so many people are immune (either from having had the disease or a vaccine) can be reached if 43% of the population is immune to the disease, according to an article in the journal “Science.”
Most others say that number is closer to 70%. Either way, we have a long way to go, unless Dr. Friston’s claim (above) that 80% of people can’t get the disease means we’ve reached herd immunity already.
The “23 and Me” DNA testing people did statistical studies of their subscribers and found that people with type O blood may be 9% to 18% less likely to get the disease. A study in China showed similar results. I wonder why? But, I’m glad that that’s my type.
Face masks are another area of contention. At one point the CDC said they won’t work for this virus, but now they say they do. A quick look at several studies seems to generally conclude that masks don’t prevent all virus particles from spreading, but that they do help the spread a little bit.
Interestingly, the definition of “close contact” is to be within six feet of someone for more than five minutes. It seems that a trip to a grocery store could be done without violating that rule. But, not wearing a mask has become the 2020 version of a scarlet letter.
If we get right down to it, every time we flatten the curve we also lengthen the curve. Nobody (who knew what they were talking about) ever said that social distancing, masks, etc. would end the pandemic. The reasoning for all of that was to slow it down, so emergency rooms and ICUs would have room for all of the Covid19 patients, a need that is necessitated by the considerably longer average ICU stay for Covid patients.
So far hospitals have generally been able to handle the case load, so maybe exposing more people (who might get sick but have zero symptoms) will speed us to herd immunity? But then again, I got a C+ in biology class in high school, so don’t listen to my ideas on the subject.
Oh, and there’s this: If you do a search for “collateral damage of Covid19,” here are some of the things you’ll see:
“Seniors are becoming COVID-19 collateral damage. They’re dying because of it, not of it.” -USA Today
“Eye of the Storm: Vision Problems Part of COVID-19’s Collateral Damage.”-US News and World Report
“The unintended consequences of COVID are far greater, in children, than the disease itself. The way we are trying to prevent this is causing more harm than the disease.” -Shamez Ladhani, MRCPCH, PhD, chair of the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit (BPSU), Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, London, UK.
“Collateral Damage of Covid-19: More Than 200 International Cancer Trials Suspended.” -Forbes
And, there are many dozens of other articles pointing out damage done to mental health, marriages, children’s socialization, and many more things.
The bottom line? I don’t know. You don’t know. Experts don’t agree who knows and who doesn’t. And the political entities that are using the hardship of Covid19 to bolster their ambitions to gain power don’t help at all.
I guess the key point is that it may be a mistake for any of us to be too sure of ourselves when it comes to this awful little bug. There has already been a lot of backtracking by experts, not to mention the rest of us non-experts.
Even if we think someone is behaving foolishly as they try to cope with this Covid world, keep in mind that we’re all trying to make sense of it and do the right thing. We probably won’t know what that right thing is until much later, but in the meantime, let’s try to be nice.
Peter Wallace Writes 