Realistically, this is another post about perspective. The societal conflagrations that are occurring in 2020 are in great need of some of that. So, on with the show.
Perspective: the disease is not as deadly as it has been presented. In fact, there is more and more evidence that the people that have been infected are being undercounted by a factor of 20 or so. That would put the death rate at very similar to a bad seasonal flu (as I predicted very early - sorry had to get that in).
If you are under 65 the numbers show that the disease is not a huge danger to you. There are only 18.15% of the deaths under 65 in the April numbers and 22.22% in the June numbers. When you combine this with the tremendous drop in deaths overall as a percentage of cases, statistically this disease is very, very unlikely to be fatal to anyone under 65 - and the younger the lower the risk in general. (FYI, as I noted in earlier posts, this is not to discount any deaths. There ARE deaths under 65. If you or a loved one is in this unfortunate group, it is 100% to you! My wife died of complications of a disease that affects a fraction of a fraction of the population. It was 100% for her.)
This one is back to the subject that is equally at hand: Covid-19. The perspective of most people seems to be that we are all gonna die from this unless we mask up and avoid contact forever. That is an idiotic perspective (at least from mine) and I am going to tell you why.
Way back near the beginning of this I published some numbers about viruses and what was known about this virus at that time. Remember, the reason this virus is causing so much havoc is the fact that it is a "novel virus". That means it had never been seen in humans before. I won't go into the science and background again (I have done it in previous posts, and others have as well - and better I would wager), but that means that the human race had no "defenses" against the disease that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes - Covid-19. As always with almost any disease there are those that for some unknown reason are less susceptible to or are able to avoid infection, but for the great majority of the population, if exposed the disease will follow with varying severity. Now some of that perspective I promised!
As with any disease the ones with the least resistance to the disease and/or are the most exposed to it, are the ones that get the disease first and unfortunately succumb to it. This is due to that fact, and the fact that, being new and unknown, the proper course of treatment is not known. It is not known what drugs, if any, will help to slow the progression or even adequately assist the patient. So, there are more deaths. The news media, being what it is, loves a good disaster. (Don't overreact to that - I don't mean at a human level, or that the media is actually wishing disaster upon us. Just that they know that an "end-of-the-world" headline grabs viewers and readers. The news media needs viewers and readers to sell advertising. It IS a business!) That means that the deaths were reported at every chance given showing the climbing death counts and the percentage of the patients that were dying. Now, think - when did you see death counts or death percentages reported last? You cannot watch a newscast or read a news report without seeing "RECORD NUMBER OF NEW COVID-19 CASES" somewhere; but no mention of the actual deaths from the disease (unless it is especially noteworthy or tear-jerking) That's because since mid-April deaths have been dropping rapidly. That's right - hundreds of thousands of cases, but not the same number of deaths. Here is a chart showing the deaths from Covid-19:
Some notes: This is from a NIH site with data provided by the CDC. You can see that the deaths from the virus peaked in mid-to-late April and have been falling rapidly since.
Cases reached a high just prior to that time (as expected) but have not dropped dramatically and have even hit a new peak of late. See here:
A note for clarity and precision: verified cases are reported much quicker than deaths due to paperwork lags and the fact that deaths are much later than the onset of symptoms. Especially with the numbers in the second-half of June on the chart showing deaths, the numbers will rise somewhat. I have been viewing this and similar data since February and I can tell you if it follows the trend, they will rise by 5% to 10% or so. That will still leave a monumental gap between new cases and deaths however, considering the significant increase in confirmed cases.
Now for another perspective; who is the disease killing? If you studied the chart showing deaths you will notice it has colored lines showing age ranges. (go back for a look, I'll wait) You will notice that the great majority of deaths happened in people over 65. Here are the numbers for the peak week of 4/18 and a more current 6/13:
To put this another way - just under 78% of the deaths in June were over 65. In April it was just over 81%. (and right at 60% were over 85 in both examples!)
One last comment, science based instead of numbers. Viruses mutate. They do so to adapt themselves for survival. Viruses that kill all or most of their hosts do not survive. Viruses in general mutate to become more infectious (more easily transmitted) but less deadly to their preferred host. Humans were not the preferred host for this virus until late 2019. It made the jump from its animal host (bat?) and "liked" what if found. It had to mutate to be able to infect humans and it has been documented to have mutated a number of times since. These mutations appear to have made it more contagious and more easily transmitted, as expected. It is now also thought by many doctors and researchers to have become less deadly. This will only be borne out over time, but that is a good thing and follows the path of many viruses.
More cases are actually what we need. As long as the death rates do not climb, or actually fall, as they are now, having the majority (or ideally almost all) of the population exposed is a good thing. Even if we do not obtain immunity from exposure/infection, some antibodies will be formed. If the disease follows normal patterns, it will become less deadly over time. My personal opinion is that it will become a seasonal (or maybe year round) thing that is with us "forever". Unfortunately it will take a percentage of the population regularly like many, many other diseases. It should not be a pandemic or a wide-spread heath problem that affects the entire population.
This is a terrible disease. The impact will be felt for many, many years. I think it will be with us forever. (for those of you that think it will "go away" with a vaccine, I remind you that we have a vaccine for influenza and there are still 35,000 to 65,000 deaths annually in the US from that as well as 300,000 - 500,000 in the world) However, do not fall for the hype that if you do get it, you will die.
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