I would like to address the OP-ED article by Diane Dimond published (in The Albuquerque Journal) on Saturday March 28, 2020 titled “Take a breath: COVID-19 sickens but rarely kills.” This article apparently is intended to try to make us feel better about the current situation that we find ourselves in, but it propagates some ideas that are not correct and could create a false sense of security in the population.
The reality is that COVID-19 is an extremely infectious disease and is quite lethal. It is a “novel” virus, never seen before in the human population, and therefore, no one in the world has prior immunity to it. After starting in one region in China in December 2019 it has spread over the entire world in a matter of four months.
Also, all of the data collected from places where the virus has been infecting people for some time (China, S. Korea, Italy) indicate that, of people who test positive for the virus, anywhere between 1.5% (S. Korea) and 10+% (Italy) die from the disease. It is, at a minimum, ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. Moreover, it is more lethal within every age group. For example, from the data published about the outbreak in China, 0.1% of patients younger than 20 died from the COVID-19. In comparison, the seasonal flu’s 0.004% mortality rate among patients 17 or younger is 25 times less than the COVID-19 mortality rate for this age group.
To use an anecdote, assume that some rich benefactor was giving away brand new houses. The only catch was that, on average, for people moving into these houses, every two out of one hundred would die within one month. And let’s assume that five of you need a place to live together – a typical family of four and a grandparent that is 75. In that situation, there would be between a 7% and 25% chance that one of you would be dead in a month. Would you voluntarily move into that house?
Also, imagine what one of those deaths is like. You are home with a fever and suddenly you can’t breathe. You go to the hospital, and shortly are in respiratory distress. You are sedated and intubated. You spend the next two weeks in a medical coma and on a respirator, and then your organs shut down. You don’t ever have a chance to say goodbye to your friends and family. They can’t even be with you in the hospital.
Happy talk will not make this virus go away, and it won’t help our society get back to normal. We need to be honest with ourselves. The experts say that, if everybody in the world would all just totally self isolate for two to three weeks, we could shut this epidemic down. Of course that won’t happen. That is why Bill Gates is saying that we need to self isolate for six to ten weeks. Yes, the economy will take a big hit, but it is, right now, our only defense against this killer.
Bert Coxe lives in Corrales.
Coronovirus OP/ED By Bert Coxe
I would like to address the OP-ED article by Diane Dimond published (in The Albuquerque Journal) on Saturday March 28, 2020 titled “Take a breath: COVID-19 sickens but rarely kills.” This article apparently is intended to try to make us feel better about the current situation that we find ourselves in, but it propagates some ideas that are not correct and could create a false sense of security in the population.
The reality is that COVID-19 is an extremely infectious disease and is quite lethal. It is a “novel” virus, never seen before in the human population, and therefore, no one in the world has prior immunity to it. After starting in one region in China in December 2019 it has spread over the entire world in a matter of four months.
Also, all of the data collected from places where the virus has been infecting people for some time (China, S. Korea, Italy) indicate that, of people who test positive for the virus, anywhere between 1.5% (S. Korea) and 10+% (Italy) die from the disease. It is, at a minimum, ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. Moreover, it is more lethal within every age group. For example, from the data published about the outbreak in China, 0.1% of patients younger than 20 died from the COVID-19. In comparison, the seasonal flu’s 0.004% mortality rate among patients 17 or younger is 25 times less than the COVID-19 mortality rate for this age group.
To use an anecdote, assume that some rich benefactor was giving away brand new houses. The only catch was that, on average, for people moving into these houses, every two out of one hundred would die within one month. And let’s assume that five of you need a place to live together – a typical family of four and a grandparent that is 75. In that situation, there would be between a 7% and 25% chance that one of you would be dead in a month. Would you voluntarily move into that house?
Also, imagine what one of those deaths is like. You are home with a fever and suddenly you can’t breathe. You go to the hospital, and shortly are in respiratory distress. You are sedated and intubated. You spend the next two weeks in a medical coma and on a respirator, and then your organs shut down. You don’t ever have a chance to say goodbye to your friends and family. They can’t even be with you in the hospital.
Happy talk will not make this virus go away, and it won’t help our society get back to normal. We need to be honest with ourselves. The experts say that, if everybody in the world would all just totally self isolate for two to three weeks, we could shut this epidemic down. Of course that won’t happen. That is why Bill Gates is saying that we need to self isolate for six to ten weeks. Yes, the economy will take a big hit, but it is, right now, our only defense against this killer.
Bert Coxe lives in Corrales.