Sometimes I do math and fall into something of a rabbit
hole. Let me take you with me on such a trip.
There has been news that 40-50% (low estimates) of deaths in
the European Union and in California have occurred in nursing homes.
I’d like to know what percentage of deaths in New York City
happened in nursing homes—where the governor made a policy requiring that nursing
home patients who tested positive for the virus but were not in need of
hospitalization be placed back in their nursing homes, rather than
quarantined at some other location, essentially saying, “Well, you have to let
them go to their own homes, after all. And trust us, we’ll keep everyone else
in the nursing homes safe.” This was a monumentally misguided policy. It
happened in Pennsylvania and several other states as well.
In a piece on May 6th, Ben Shapiro said:
Had the authorities properly protected nursing homes, the infection fatality rate across the industrialized world could be half of the current rate.
Fatality rates could have been cut in half. That’s an easy number to cut, I thought. Then I could see what the death rate among the rest of the population is. If only I knew what number to start with.
I got some
data, but not all I needed.
I started by asking, how many seniors live in nursing homes?
One estimate was 3% (according to Senior Living ). But this answer from NursingHomeDiaries.com was a bit higher and a bit more
nuanced:
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, slightly over 5
percent of the 65+ population occupy nursing homes, congregate care, assisted
living, and board-and-care homes, and about 4.2 percent are in nursing homes at
any given time. The rate of nursing home use increases with age from 1.4
percent of the young-old to 24.5 percent of the oldest-old. Almost 50 percent
of those 95 and older live in nursing homes.
I'd need to dive deeper to find out how to carve out nursing home death rates from population-at-large death rates—and neither death rate is known.
To know the actual death rate, you need to know how many
people have been infected, but since so many are asymptomatic or not severe,
and mostly only severe cases get tested, we don’t know this number. (I did some
math on this here.)
According to the graphic we get in the in the Houston
Chronicle, as of today in the state of Texas we’ve had 501,776 total tests,
of which there have been 39,783 confirmed cases, and 1099 deaths. Deaths per
confirmed cases is 2.76%. And when we’re testing mainly suspected cases, only
7.9% are positive. Does that mean a lot of people wrongly suspect Covid, or a
lot of people are getting tested in the general healthy population?
Anyway, deaths per confirmed cases looks much more dire than
we think it will once we have a better idea of how many people have been
infected without knowing. We don’t yet have broad antibody testing, showing who
has successfully faced and defeated the virus. With current antibody tests, because
of the high number of false positives, they’re better for population data than
for individual use. That means they can’t be used to identify who is safe from
getting or spreading the virus.
Always more questions than answers.
It’s only the first week of opening up in Texas. Things aren’t
looking very different yet, nor have we experienced a significant, and
expected, increase in cases.
Deaths per population, which I’ve used before, gives us a little more perspective, but it
only tells us “deaths so far,” which has a lot to do with how dense the
population is and whether social distancing measures have been done. It says
nothing about how many of those eventually infected will die.
Again, what I really would like to know is still unknowable.
So I’m climbing back out of that rabbit hole.
But there is enough that we do know to give us some
perspective.
Most people, including me, don’t understand risk. When I was
taught about germs as a child, I got the impression that, if a single germ got
inside me, that meant I would get sick. I think that was a scare tactic
to get me to stop biting my nails. Hint: it didn’t work; it made me more
nervous, but it did get me to wash my hands a lot. (I finally overcame the nail
biting in my 30s; thanks for your concern.) Anyway, with all the hygiene
lessons we’re getting everyday, we do seem to be getting told that, if a single
microscopic germ of Covid-19 makes its way into our house—like a speck of
glitter—on our mail or groceries, we’re sure to get the disease.
And if we get the disease, it’s sure to be bad, or quite
possibly deadly.
And that’s why we have to remain locked up for the
foreseeable future.
But most of that dread is just unfounded. A glitter spec of
virus is easily handled by your immune system; it’s a heavy viral load that
leads to infection, like you’d get from being directly coughed on by an
infected person. And most infections are not bad.
Still, it’s a bad virus. I think ambient deaths is a good
indicator. That means, deaths above and beyond what you’d expect from the
normal sources. We’re not imagining the coronavirus deaths. They’re real, and
they’re pretty close to the numbers being recorded, despite some probable
errors in both overcounting and undercounting.
So that is known; it’s bad. But how bad?
Since we don’t know the actual death rate, we have to do
some guessing. It’s more than flu. It’s less than a lot of other things.
This chart[i]
shows the typical daily deaths of a whole lot of illnesses. The orange lines
show diseases causing a current worldwide outbreak. The other lines are diseases
that are endemic—always around.
 |
| graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net Coronavirus Infographic Datapak |
My new question is, why do none of these other things make us
feel so panicked, so willing to shut down our economy? It’s not because Covid is
the most dangerous thing. It’s not even the most dangerous current outbreak.
It is not causing the most deaths. It is not the most likely
to cause deaths. While the rate of contagion and rate of death are unknowns,
their ranges are higher than some but lower than many others. Contagion range
is 1.5 – 3.5 persons spread to from each infected person. Death rate range is
somewhere between 0.7 – 3.4%. The rate seems to be going down the more testing
we have.
Measles is a whole lot more contagious and just about as
likely to cause death. We’ve never shut down the world for a measles outbreak. We
didn’t shut down the world for Ebola, which is much more likely to cause death
and is in a similar range for spread; we contained and successfully quarantined
it. But you can see on that chart that it isn’t eradicated.
There’s one difference between this and every other disease
outbreak: media. Total mentions in the media (from inception to today)[ii]:
·
HIV 69.5 million
·
SARS 66.3 million
·
MERS 33.1 million
·
Ebola 16.2 million
·
Covid-19/Coronavirus 2.1 billion
That’s 130 times for every mention of Ebola, 63 times for
every mention of MERS, 32 times for ever mention of SARS, and 30 times for
every mention of HIV/AIDS.
If we could filter out all the media shouting, what would
our reasonable response be?
My son Political Sphere says that people often give him a
shocked reaction when he says he expects to get this virus eventually. “You
think you’re going to get it?” they ask, as if that’s an entirely new idea they
can’t accept. “Of course,” he answers.
Because what we’ve been doing is slowing the spread, not
stopping it.
What would it take to stop it? More than you’re willing to
go through for this level of risk.
An absolute total lockdown for 3 weeks or so (the longest length
of time from exposure to showing symptoms—and after that an additional 3+ weeks
of quarantine for those who show symptoms, along with those exposed to those persons).
That means no hospitals—unless you keep every hospital worker at the hospital
the whole time without allowing them to leave the premises. You don’t have food
suppliers. You don’t have workers keeping the electrical grid working. Or water
or other utilities; whatever works automatically you can have, but no troubleshooting
if you have issues. No one can work outside their homes—including "essential" services. No newspeople. No broadcast media. No police. No firefighters. If you happen to
need emergency help during this shutdown, tough luck for you.
The deaths from other causes would likely eclipse the lives
saved from Covid-19 during a total shutdown.
It should be obvious that we’re not set up for that kind of
shutdown; we’re not willing to submit to it; and there would be no way to
enforce it.
And, did I mention it would have to be worldwide? Otherwise,
it would still be spreading somewhere; and if it spreads somewhere, it
eventually spreads everywhere.
So, no, this CCP[iii]
virus is not being eradicated by total quarantine. That means we never had any
intention except to slow the spread. It will indeed eventually spread through
the population.
Pretending that we’re going to get eradication from our
partial measures is a common misperception. But you aren’t saving lives by
staying home; you’re postponing inevitable infections. Not only that, you’re
expecting “expendable” people to supply your needs while you’re doing your virtuous
stay-at-home. It’s not a matter of whether, but when.
We can—and should—do what we can to protect nursing homes
and other vulnerable people—not by shutting ourselves up, but by quarantining them
as much as possible. I don’t know how you can do even that protection with
total success, since workers and suppliers have to come and go.
Already we’ve deprived nursing home residents of visitors for two months, which
has to be pretty painful.
So, unless you completely isolate yourself, at some point
you’re going to get it.
Unless there’s a totally effective vaccine developed before
you get it. Doubtful.
So, accept that it’s coming to you. Should you be drawing up
your will? Probably—but only because you should do that anyway, well ahead of
imminent death.
But, it could be bad, right? Possibly, but what are the
odds?
If you get the virus and you’re under 60, you can expect a
mild case. Because 80% of all cases are mild—including for the elderly and those
with underlying conditions.
According to the data so far, 80.9% of cases are mild—like a
cold. You stay home for a day or two (and maybe you should stay home longer
just to avoid spreading it to those who can’t afford the risk), and you’ll feel
fine. You probably won’t even see a doctor or get a test to know that’s what
you had. Some in this group will have a harder bout, but will still not need
more than a doctor visit and enough time to recover at home.
Fourteen out of a hundred people (13.8%) who get it will
have a bad case—enough to require hospitalization. Like we said, these will
probably be older people with multiple underlying conditions, although younger
people with multiple underlying conditions might want to protect themselves. If
we get successful treatments, some portion of this group will move into the
milder case category.
Only five out of a hundred (4.7%) need intensive critical
care, such as a ventilator. And 50% of those who need ventilators survive. And,
again, if we get more reliable treatments that can be used earlier, we prevent
many of these critical cases.
 |
| Deaths by age. Graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net |
Age is a factor, but that doesn’t mean this disease kills all
old people.
Data from Italy, of people whose average age was 79, shows
us that only 1% of those with a serious case of Covid-19 at time of death (i.e.,
died because of the coronavirus) had no known underlying conditions in addition
to their age. All the rest had at least one underlying condition. Nearly half
had 3 or more underlying conditions.
 |
| Risk factors of deaths of average age 79 Graphic from InformationIsBeautiful.net |
That means, if you don’t have the risk factors, you’re not
likely to die. Even the vast majority, 85-90%, of those who are in the danger
age range and may have one or two risk factors nevertheless survive.
If a vaccine—one that is more effective than the flu vaccine
has ever been—becomes available in record time, then maybe you can avoid the
risk. But if you’re not willing to stake the livelihoods of hundreds of
millions of Americans (and billions of people worldwide) on that unlikely hope,
then maybe you need to come to be at peace with the probability that you will
get it—but along with the expectation that it will probably not affect you
badly.
If enough speak that truth to themselves and re-enter the world, letting the virus spread through the
least vulnerable—the healthy, young people—then the virus runs out of available
hosts to keep passing it along. It runs its course.
And maybe we can get to that point before the virus gets to
our most vulnerable. Maybe that should be our goal.
There are many risks that we have come to be at peace with.
We drive. We swim. We fly. Even though it’s a risk, we don’t expect death every
time we walk out the door. We weigh the risk against our determination to meet
some other goal, and we accept it.
This virus is a new risk laid on top of all those others. We
don’t like it, but there it is. If we can’t eradicate it—and thanks to China,
that possibility is long gone—then we’ve got to learn to live with it.
Think how you’ve done that with all those other risks.
Repeat that process for this big thing.
People who work to overcome phobias find that experiencing
the risk a little at a time helps them get over the fear. Tiny steps. But
continuous tiny steps toward the goal of facing their fear—and they can handle the
snake, or take the cross-country flight, or whatever it is.
So let’s take this time of reopening to overcome our mostly
irrational fears so that we can get back to the business of living our lives.
Become at peace with what is. It’s probably a good time to
turn to God, rather than government, to help you do that.
[i] This
chart and several more I’m sharing today are from InformationIsBeautiful.netcoronavirus infographic datapack.
[ii]
InformationIsBeautiful.net credits this information to Google News.
[iii] The
Epoch Times made an editorial decision to refer to Covid-19/coronavirus as
the CCP virus, because the worldwide spread was caused by the actions of the
Chinese Communist Party.
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