Before I share my thoughts here is the link to the news story dated May 26th and updated May 28th:
Everyone is a conspiracy buff these days.
Right from the start of this pandemic, anyone who didn't believe the doom and gloom forecasts of 2+ million dead in the United States and a mortality rate of somewhere between 4 and 5% was thought to be part of the 5G "death tower" crowd, or must believe that the novel coronavirus was a bioweapon designed to usher in the new world order.
Now that the authorities are revising their numbers downward, to an incredible degree, its those who were all in on the doom and gloom forecasts who are screaming conspiracy. Now its big biz or the far right ignoring or manipulating science to get the economy moving. That obviously wouldn't include the Amazons, Wal-Marts and Loblaws of the world of course, they're doing booming buisness. For them this new normal is hunky dory.
I'm one who believes the truth typically lies between the extremes. Right from the start when the numbers first started coming out of Italy it was clear that Covid-19 was overwhelmingly deadly with a very specific population, the elderly and health compromised. Younger and otherwise healthy people not so much, even experts in infectious diseases are now going on record as saying that for the young and healthy the risks of being killed or seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident are higher than that of dying from Covid-19. Just to be clear, they're not saying there is zero risk, just an incedibly low risk.
Personally I find the whole fixation on a broad based mortality rate to be somewhat absurd. The reason is simple, the risks are not the same for everyone. Roughly 500 Canadians are reported to drown in any given year, so there is a risk there. Does that mean that no Canadians should ever go swimming? Of course not and nobody would ever suggest something so ridiculous. But for someone who can't even tread water or do a simple dog paddle, then a life jacket is a reasonable safety precaution even if just heading out fishing on a small cottage lake.
Likewise with the novel coronavirus. An eighty year old diabetic with hypertension needs to be incredibly vigilant in today's world, along with anyone coming into close contact with this person. My opinion from the start has always been that we have to do all that is possible to protect those that are vulnerable. Even knowing all we know we've done a horrible job of it as evidenced by the statistics showing about 80% of Canada's deaths from Covid happening in LTC type facilities.
Like most people I have elderly relatives, and when we talk by phone I urge them to be safe, I don't need to though because they already know it. I'd love to go visit my favorite 87 year old aunt, but I won't until a safe and effective vaccine is developed. If things do ease up enough I might take a trip and see her in the great outdoors though, with lots of space. But that would be hard with her six year old great nephew wanting a hug I'm sure. We shall see.
Even testing is no panacea. I could get tested today, then find out in three or four days that I was negative, but in the interceding days I might become infected. In the interim I've decided I'm going to live as normal a life as possible. I'm one of the lucky ones whose job was deemed essential, but my heart goes out to those who's livelihoods have been taken away, tossed onto goverment welfare that for many won't be enough to pay the bills.
And now I'll wait for my merry stalkers and trolls to chime in.
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2 comments:
Well, Gordie, here I am, your favourite troll. I read that local NBC affilate report, and their link to the CDC bafflegab page. What it all shows is nobody has a clue; it's all estimates, guesses and well, a waste of time. Percentages like .00x mean nothing to me and I'm an engineer. It's like high priests talking among themselves for no apparent reason. Deaths per million population anyone can understand, like deaths per million miles.
My brother, who is a doctor, and I have been discussing for weeks how to proceed to a reasonable conclusion for re-opening society. To me it's obvious that basic statistical theory has not even been considered. The rather useless graphs that public health presents on various provincial websites betrays a uniformity of non-thinking, which leads us to believe the standard curriculum for those folks at university is out-of-date, and the same old tired memes are taught everywhere.
Statistical sampling is not being carried out. That, as in opinion polling, is standard these days in most industries for quality assurance purposes. We simply have no idea of the active asymptos wandering about out there at any given point in time. And we need to know. It's vital.
If a good-sized random sample say 1,000 of the population of a prescribed area is taken every, say, week, and given the viral swab test, then we'd know to a reasonable certainty what the percentage of active asymptos there are out there. As they recover and become inactive, unaware they even had Covid-19, continued random sample testing would show how transmission is proceeding in time among asymptos in society. As it stands, we haven't the first clue what's going on. It's fire buckets to the rescue when a hot spot develops, reactive rather than proactive.
Active asymptos are what will spawn a Wave 2 in vulnerable populations. The virus cannot simply pop up out of thin air. Someone has to have it and pass it on. We vitally need to know the numbers of asymptos. We can't test everyone, so sampling is the way. Proven in so many processes, it's amazing these public health people haven't even seem to heard of it.
Here's all the authorities are doing now -- 0ne, waiting for someone to develop symptoms they themselves notice, then testing them; Two, waiting for a sudden hot spot to show up and going ballistic testing everyone in sight around that hotspot, contact tracing etc. Meanwhile, active asymptos are disregarded entirely, but they are the key to understanding what's happening as time goes by. It all seems dunderheaded to me, because all we get is floundering around and opinion without the first clue about the active path of the virus through society with time. The antibody test some go on about is an after the fact test, when the random sample test shows predictively what the antibody testing later shows.
I agree that the public health response has been silly because it's unscientific. And not explainable to a person of average intelligence either, which is why people are getting tetchy. A Grade 10 student could run the plan we currently see PHOs doing, which is to wait until positives become near zero and then take tentative steps to reopen in a god-forsaken unsocial manner. We could easily find out the trend of numbers of active asymptos, but we sit around blowing bubbles instead.
When random sampling shows few asymptos, after regular testing shows obvious symptom cases slowing to a trickle as in my province, then it's pretty safe to reopen without heroic social distancing methods. Sorry, the logic about flu and accidents versus virus deaths has no bearing on this virus situation. It's extraneous nonsense that means nothing relevant, and leads to silly conclusions and posturing like kenney abandoning seniors, because hey they've had their innings
BM
Its seems we do agree on somee things BM. Ultimately how can a situation be managed without reliable measurements. You're likely aware of the sampling you're talking about that was done in LA County in tandem with researchers from USC. What their study revealed was that the number of actual cases was likely at least 20x greater compared to the official confirmed number...and possibly as much as 55x greater. However if memory serves it wasn't a particularily large sample (300+ if I'm remember correctly, and I'm too worn out from checking every little factoid to check again) and crtics complained that the researchers used facebook as a recruitment tool for participants. Frankly I myself don't care what method was used for recruiting people, so long as those recruited were broadly representative of the overall population the study was designed to examine.
My point has always been that the supposedly "deadly" coronavirus is not nearly as deadly as originally thought. This one size fits all solution has always seemed wrong, we've known for whom Covid-19 is most dangerous for 2+ months now, rather they trying to protect everyone from getting infected I believe we need to marshall what limited resources we have into protecting those most vulnerable.
Yes, I'm aware that there is a very small % of younger and otherwise healthy people who are getting seriously ill and even dying. Emerging research is showing a statistically significant correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 being serious in younger people. It is said that VITD deficiency may lead the immune system to overreacting, attacking both healthy cells as well as those that are diseased....in children its called Kawasaki (sp?) syndrome.
I'm only tracking Ontario's hospitals and its good to see the number of cases requiring hospital treatment going steadily down, even as case numbers climb as testing increases.
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