Lacorte News How many people recall the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus in 2009 that was also designated a pandemic? Swine flu. Obviously, not many.
It originated in the U.S. and spread across the world and affected primarily children and young and middle aged adults. There were 60.8 million cases in the U.S., 275,000 hospitalizations, and 12,500 deaths. Global deaths were estimated between 151,000 and 575,000. There was no hysteria. None.
With the coronavirus (COVID-19), the media has successfully put the country in a panic of epic proportions. Social media makes it worse. Partisan politics in an election year makes it even worse. Watching any of those outlets could give you the impression that if you get it, you die. But the numbers don’t come close to supporting that, even in China and Italy where the most deaths have occurred.
In the U.S. on Sunday, March 15, there were 3,083 cases of coronavirus and 60 deaths, with 40% of those deaths coming from one nursing home outside of Seattle. The virus is tragically hard on seniors but for those under 60, the recovery rate is similar to the flu (which infects millions and causes tens of thousands of deaths every year). In fact, if you are under 80 and healthy, you have a great prognosis: you will most likely live. With the exception of medically compromised seniors and severely sick adults, math tells me the coronavirus is nowhere near as deadly as the seasonal flu or the swine flu.
The survival rate is already well over 90% and is increasing. The critics want more testing and the private sector, with help from the federal government and FDA, is responding by stepping up the delivery of tests. I believe the media and partisan politics see this as a way to increase the fear and criticism of the Trump administration because everyone knows that more testing will result in more incidents identified. You can see the headlines and the breathless reporters and anchors trumpeting the “surge” in infections. Unfortunately, I think that will cause the market to lose more ground in the short run so it is likely we haven’t seen the bottom yet.
But the tests will also demonstrate a higher number of people who recover from the virus and the death rate will decline significantly. Dr. Tony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases believes the death rate is more like 1%. He is guessing and that is ok but already, in South Korea, as of Sunday, there have been only 75 deaths in 8,162 cases, which is less than 1%. Once we test as many people for COVID-19 as are tested annually for the flu (millions of people), the death rate will fall in line with the flu. Since such a large percentage of people recover from this because it is not serious, many people could have had it and will not be tested this year.
According to the CDC, during the U.S. flu season from Oct 1, 2019 to March 7 2020 there have been between 36 to 51 MILLION cases of the flu; 17-24 MILLION medical visits and between 22,000-55,000 DEATHS. Good thing CNN, MSNBC and social media didn’t see this. We wouldn’t have toilet paper for 10 years. They chose to ignore it and the world went on.
It’s important and quite instructive to analyze what happened with the outbreak in China. In the last three weeks, the spread in China has slowed dramatically with new infections slowing almost to a halt. The first death in China was Jan 11. By March 13, The Independent reported that in China, Wuhan doctors celebrated closure of the last temporary hospital after a dramatic fall in cases there. They reported that health chiefs say only 11 new cases were recorded in one day. As of Sunday, China has just over 80,000 cases with the vast majority recovering. In fact, according to Worldometer, 67,000 people have recovered in China and another 7,500 active cases are classified as mild. That makes 74,500 people out of 80,000 or 93%. While Apple has closed all of its retail stores around the world outside of China, Apple has REOPENED ALL 42 OF ITS STORES in China. Their major vendors have returned more than 50% of workers to the factories and expect to be back in full production at the end of March.
Dr. Fauci told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that he believes life in the U.S. will get back to normal in “a matter of several weeks to a few months.” Given what has happened in China, that is an intelligent assessment. Of course, the headline in The Hill reporting on Dr. Fauci’s interview only highlighted “possibly a few months” and left out the “several weeks” part.
Stated simply, China, once the epicenter of this virus, has returned to normal after just two months and COVID-19 has slowed to a trickle.
These are facts the American media and therefore the lemmings of social media are ignoring.
Keep in mind, the VAST majority of the deaths from this globally are in China. So if China only has 3,200 deaths in a population that is 4 times larger than the United States, how in the world is it rational to project hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths in the United States? Comparing populations, why wouldn’t the U.S. deaths be 25% of China’s? That would be more like 800 people and given our hyper awareness and significant actions, why wouldn’t the number of deaths In the U.S. be significantly lower than 800?
Yet some pundits talk about 4 million infections in the U.S. On Friday, Drudge had a bold red headline that 150 million people in the U.S. could get it. The quote came from Rashida Talib, one of The Squad. Obviously, Drudge didn’t consider the source. I wonder which news outlet will rush to be the first to predict 1 billion infections and 100 million deaths.
What they are getting wrong is that they are comparing this to the Spanish Flu of 1918. It is not. They are also incorrectly assigning a 7-10% infection rate like the annual flu rate. That is for all flus but in China, it appears the virus has petered out and the infection rate (not the death rate) was 80,000/1.4 billion which is not even 1/10 of 1%. That’s like promising a category 5 hurricane and getting a tropical depression. Frankly, the press, social media and partisan politics are doing the most harm.
The fear is palpable. It has driven the stock market down by 20%. Worst of all, it is absolutely killing the backbone of America, small businesses. I am glad to see Trump putting aside $50 billion for small businesses but in the meantime in Seattle, which has been the U.S. epicenter to date, many restaurants are not just closed – hurting the individuals who work there – they are closing permanently. While U.S. sports leagues have closed their doors, think about the people who work at the stadiums, in local parking garages and local restaurants and bars who are all adversely affected. The sports owners are billionaires and the players are millionaires but everyone else needs those paychecks.
With all of the school closings, cancelation of concerts, conferences, sporting events, the travel bans we have in place and the hyper awareness of people, the United States is doing a lot. Hands have never been cleaner, surgical masks are being worn all over and people are in self-quarantine. We are taking extreme steps and it is working. As for China, it looks like the worst is behind them.
As time goes on, it is obvious that Trump’s China travel ban on January 31 was extremely effective, though ridiculed at the time. Dr. Fauci praised Trump’s China travel ban. Yet as partisan politics would dictate, Trump’s recent European and subsequent U.K./Ireland travel bans are now being ridiculed even as Italy is in near-total shut down. The European travel restrictions are absolutely warranted as the death rate in Italy has reached 1,800. (As of Sunday, Italy had almost 25,000 cases with just over 21,000 cases classified as mild/recovered, which is 86% positive; In France, 91% are mild or fully recovered).
Remember, there are no borders in Europe so people travel without restriction like they do between New York and New Jersey. The European States should be worried. Speaking of borders, as of Friday, The New York Times reported that Mexico had 16 confirmed cases and Mexico’s Deputy Health Minister suggested that restrictions or stronger surveillance at the U.S/Mexico border may be necessary to prevent the disease from spreading from the U.S. into Mexico. The irony is utterly amazing. Maybe Mexico will help fund the wall after all.
Summer is coming and cases of flu don’t spread nearly as much in the summer. Has anyone noticed that warm weather countries have not exploded with incidents? Just the contrary.
If the timeline in the U.S. follows China, it appears that this can very easily be a two-month event. We are already a month into it and we are taking drastic measures. Increased testing will undoubtedly raise the number of infected in the US. but we are also not seeing the spike in deaths that China experienced. There is a huge difference between 4,000 deaths and 60. In fact, it’s 66 times different. But you wouldn’t know that reading The NY Times, watching the news or scrolling through Facebook.
Let’s put this in perspective. Annually, we have over 250,000 traffic deaths; 471,000 by alcohol; 942,000 from smoking and 1.5 MILLION from cancer. Throw in over 184,000 from malaria and over 300,000 from HIV. 300 people die every year from falling off ladders.
So folks, it’s time for a reality check. I’m not saying that the coronavirus should not be taken seriously, but put it into perspective and do the reasonable preventive measures. Avoid unnecessary air travel; crowded places such as theaters, concerts and conventions. Wash your hands often after contact with public surfaces and shaking hands with other people.
BUT if you need to travel for business or attend a crowded venue for work, do the right thing and take necessary precautions.