I want to share some numbers and stories. Not trying to sell anything here, make of it what you will.
Two evenings ago I could listen to a professor from the most important infectious disease hospital in my region (a region hosting about 4.35 million people) share some numbers about COVID in the same region.
91% of positives are being followed/treated at home. NINETY-ONE PERCENT.
The remaining 9% are hospitalized. Among these, 1 in 16 is in intensive care. ONE IN SIXTEEN.
The professor didn’t share the details about age and comorbidities of those hospitalized. But it’s pretty easy to imagine most of them must be old age, diabetic, obese, COPD / heart disease patients, etc.
These numbers could mean different things.
They could mean the virus has mutated and it’s less lethal.
They could mean we’ve understood a thing or two about COVID and can treat people better.
They could mean we’ve understood a thing or two about COVID and we are killing less people trying to save them with inappropriate/ineffective therapies. Hey, happens all the time. God knows how many good intentions healthcare people paved the road to hell with. You can break your back trying to help people, this don’t mean you‘re always doing the best thing.
They could mean the way the media are using raw numbers may not be in the interest of correct, unbiased information.
But I think that 91% of positives NOT being at risk of death and being manageable from home means that, no, this isn’t the Black Death.
Of course people are dying. It’s a disease, an acute one. The flu kills, too. We all know this. Every winter someone is going to die from complications of the flu. Yet “it’s just a flu”, right? Been so for decades since widespread hygiene, better nutrition, better life conditions, and antibiotics to prevent/cure complications.
Now, I know a family doctor who’s been telling me some stories.
He’s been working a lot these days, mostly on the phone because people are falling ill left and right as the cold season comes in and people get all kind of symptoms and having flu-like symptoms means COVID must be suspected, so a talk with the doctor is imperative.
He’s telling me that almost all symptomatic patients go down with a flu-like syndrome. Symptoms may be pretty intense at times, but for most people, it’s a pretty intense flu with no life-threatening manifestations.
He’s also telling me that people are fucking scared senseless, and I do mean senseless.
A guy’s daughter, a middle-school girl, tested positive, with very mild symptoms. Guy and his wife were naturally put in quarantine by the doctor, both completely asymptomatic, not even a sniffle. Well, less than 24 hours later the guy sent the doctor an email asking if they could be prescribed “anti-COVID” drugs to keep at home “just in case, and OF COURSE under strict medical counselling”. The doctor hat to explain that there’s no magic drug against COVID, and that most approved therapies have shown some utility pretty much only in severe, hospitalized cases.
So here you have a middle-aged guy about 50yo, good career, generally healthy, not even mild symptoms relatable to COVID, breaking down because his daughter had mild flu-like symptoms. Would he break down if his daughter had been diagnosed with the flu? Yet what she has is even milder than the usual flu. And her father is scared shitless because he’s been told for months that this thing, you know, kills, and he’s stranded at home with someone who has it.
Another story. Doctors gets a call from a middle-aged woman, not very well put financially and not the best fit person in the world. She says that she’s had “a flu” for like 4-5 days, and her two sons, around 20yo, had something similar as well. Doctor puts them in quarantine stat, and tells them to get tested. Symptoms, again, are pretty mild. Nothing some acetaminophen and some cough syrup can’t manage.
A couple days later the woman calls in again. She says she’s feeling better, her sons have some cough but nothing major. Thing is, she’s been informed that 8 out of 9 people who work at her office have symptoms and/or have tested positive for COVID... and now the woman is SCARED. She’d been calling her symptoms “a flu” herself just two or three days earlier. She’s saying she’s getting better. And yet... she’s afraid. NOW she is. Because this thing, you know, is the new Black Death, apparently.
Nobody is denying COVID can kill. Nobody. It can kill just as any other acute disease that can wreak havoc with your lungs and heart, especially if you have preexisting conditions.
But ignoring what fearmongering, propaganda, isolation, loss of control, loss of jobs and money, governments’ indecision and contradicting news are doing to people is just as bad as ignoring basic hygiene and prevention procedures. I don’t know, and I don’t care, if there’s some lizardman billionaire pulling the strings or if it’s just straight incompetence from people in charge. The end result is the same: the disease is mostly mild, but people believe it’s much worse than that, and they’re scared, and they’re forfeiting their rights and their living because of fear.
