Let's travel back in time, not far, just to early March 2020. It probably seems a lifetime ago however given all that's happened in the interceding 3+ months.
As information was coming out of China and Italy about the novel coronavirus, the Imperial College of London published a research paper authored by their Coronavirus Response Team. It was a scary report. The ICL had modeled what would happen in the United States and Great Britain if the virus was allowed to spread unchecked.
Predictions of 2+ million dead in the United States with critical care space in hospitals being exceeded many times over. Even with Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) 1+ million were forecast to die. And that was assuming that every patient in need of critical care would be able to receive it. If you would like to read the actual report, here it is.
While no modelling was done for Canada the report said that other western countries could expect proportionate levels of mortality with some allowance for population age and health care capacity. Doing a simple back of the napkin calculation that would mean roughly 200,000 Canadians dying. Even with NPIs it was forecast that the demand for critical care space in hospitals would be exceeded many times over, and that projections (for Canada) of around 100K dying with NPIs was still based on everyone needing critical care receiving it.
Canada was facing nothing short of a catastrophe. In my province of Ontario the already underfunded and overburdened health care system was going to be overrun with sick and dying people. Even if NPIs were successful doctors and nurses would be making life and death triage decisions, picking out who would be left to die.
If the report was credible, and in the world of medical science you don't get any more credible than the Imperial College of London, then governments had to react and difficult decisions had to be made. Life and death decisions. And those decisions were made, the only developed western country that did not believe the ICL assumptions and modelling was Sweden.
Elderly patients were moved out of hospitals and into Long Term Care facilities. Patients awaiting surgeries deemed "elective" had their procedures indefinitely delayed, including those in need of life saving operations. Back on April 30th Ontario's Ministry of Health estimated that 35 people had already died because of cardiac operations being indefinitely postponed, a number that is sure to keep climbing higher and higher. Cancer screenings were also cancelled, eliminating the most vital tool when it comes to surviving cancer, early detection.
Those are hard decisions. Sacrificing people by cancelling procedures like bypass surgery and eliminating life saving cancer screenings. But that was nothing compared to the numbers we would see dying from Covid-19. These were esteemed experts talking and Ontario listened to the high priests of medical science and made the hard decisions to free up space in our hospitals.
The hard decisions didn't stop there. Over 1 million Ontarians were put out of work and another 1+ million saw their hours reduced. Job loss and financial stress can be devastating to marriages and children, but another hard choice was made to declare the sale of booze and weed as essential. The decision to leave the LCBO open was because of dependency issues, we couldn't have our overwhelmed hospitals dealing with DeTox patients while swamped with Covid-19 patients who were going to be dying waiting for space in the ICU.
Schools closed, churches shuttered, in person support services for the mentally ill and other vulnerable people, gone. Everyone told to stay home, a simple act of walking in the park or shooting hoops alone could bring hundreds of dollars in fines. THIS WAS SERIOUS!!! I don't think its a stretch to compare government action with Noah building the ark, a hard rain was coming and our elected representatives were doing what was necessary.
Based on my own interactions with people the message was received loud and clear, people were scared. The media was a huge help, no longer was it the Novel Coronavirus, now it was the DEADLY Coronavirus. Journalists and media talking heads piled it on with expressions like Tsunami of Death, Armageddon, The Apocalypse. No dooms day language was too strong.
And it worked, it worked so well that people now won't believe newer and more thorough science that contradicts the original messaging. When mainstream media outlets like NBC started reporting that the overall mortality rate is just 0.4% many refused to believe it. "Fake news" they scream, clinging to the original projection of between 4 and 5 percent put out by the ICL back in March. Same with credible reporting coming from John Hopkins saying the same thing, that the "deadly coronavirus" is not nearly as deadly as originally believed, nowhere close.
Now the same credible sources that were believed when the forecasts were dire are completely ignored.
The health care system is not being overwhelmed. Of Ontario's 14.5 million people only 791 are currently being treated in the province's roughly 500 hospitals as I write this. Even the massive gathering at Toronto's Trinity Bellwood park hasn't caused the numbers to climb as experts predicted. On the Monday following those estimated 10,000 people gathering without maintaining social distance the OHA website had the number of hospitalized Covid patients at 878.
So what are governments at the federal and provincial levels to do? After heaping so much pain and misery on Canadians are they going to put their hands up and say that things aren't that bad? Millions out of work, children and spouses told to stay home with unemployed alcoholics, people dead and who will die because vital medical procedures were cancelled.
Are government funded media outlets going to trumpet the findings of infectious disease experts and epidemiologists who are proving that the novel coronavirus is less deadly than driving for the young and otherwise healthy?
Of course they won't, and they don't have to worry because people are not going to believe it anyway. The great unwashed already made up their minds when they were terrified of contracting the virus. Confirmation bias can be a wonderful thing, nobody likes to admit they were wrong and everyone is now convinced they themselves are medical authorities. The CDC, John Hopkins, USC, Stanford, Oxford and all the other esteemed institutions and experts are now part of some kind of conspiracy for changing their conclusions based on better and more abundant data.
Think of the United States with their disaster of a president. After spending 3+ years hammering Trump over all his gaffes and horrible leadership, are they going to give him a "gotcha" moment by spreading the news that this virus really is no more deadly than the common flu for those who are younger and healthy? I'm no fan of Donald Trump, but even a blind, ignorant, racist sociopath squirrel can find a nut.
And one final consideration. Yes, medical science and government got it wrong, THIS TIME. But another one is coming, of that there can be little doubt. And the last thing they want is for everyone to think it's just Chicken Little panicking all over again when a truly deadly virus comes along.
I'll end this heavy post with some humour. It seems the Simpsons may have just hit another prediction home run:
Posts
Seed Newsvine
No comments:
Post a Comment