Sixty days. That’s how long it takes COVID-19 deaths to start up and then come back down. It’s called Farr’s Law. It’s almost exactly the same in every single country throughout the world. If you don’t realize this, please educate yourself by going to one of the COVID-19 statistical websites. I recommend worldometer.com.
This 60 days is remarkably consistent regardless of public lockdown policy. It was 60 days in Italy with its strict lockdown. It was 60 days in Sweden with its limited social distancing policy.
Here in Mississippi, we’ve had lock down for 60 days. That’s enough. Time to move on.
I realize we are trying to minimize deaths. As of today (May 4), the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has documented 38,576 COVID-19 deaths. That’s a little over half the 61,000 deaths caused by the flu season of 2017-18. These U.S. stats are available online at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/
We didn’t shutdown the economy because of the flu in 2017-18. We didn’t shut down the economy because of the Swine Flu of 2009, nor the AIDS epidemic, nor the measles outbreak in 1991, nor the West Nile Virus, nor Lyme disease, nor the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968 (which killed millions worldwide), nor polio, nor the Asian flu epidemic of 1957 (which killed millions nationwide) nor even the Spanish Flu epidemic (which killed tens of millions worldwide.)
Shutdowns kill. Life expectancy is directly linked to economic prosperity. A strong economy allows for hospitals, healthcare, good nutrition, mental stability and a thousand other factors that have a direct effect on mortality. Economic collapse is deadly.
Our best defense against viruses is our immune system. Stress is one of the great destroyers of our immune system. Fear, shutdowns and economic collapse is the worse possible way to fight this virus. It will lead to higher suicide rates, higher drug overdoses, higher divorce rates, more domestic violence and more overall deaths than COVID-19 could cause by itself.
The point of the shutdown was to “flatten the curve,” not to eradicate the virus, which is impossible. By flattening the curve, we spread the deaths out over a longer period, thus insuring our hospital aren’t overloaded.
We have achieved that goal. There are no shortages of ventilators. Our hospitals have plenty of beds. We never had to use any of the temporary emergency hospitals erected in hotbed areas. The reason for the shutdown no longer exists.
We have now learned that the COVID-19 virus is much less fatal than we thought. It is not Ebola, it is more like a bad flu. It’s infection fatality rate, still being determined, is something on the order of one fatality per 350 infections compared to one out of 1,000 for the flu. It’s a noxious killer, but manageable.
So far, according to the CDC, the COVID-19 virus has killed one American out 8,554. The average age of a COVID-19 victim is 80 years old — which also happens to be the average age of life expectancy. This is because everyone’s immune system declines with age, just like every other part of your body. Older people also die of pneumonia, common colds, the flu and hundreds of other causes. Yet we do not shut down the economy because of this.
Using the CDC’s total all-cause mortality stats, the total death rate in the U. S. so far this year is about the same as the five-year average. It will take years, to understand what has really happened. In the meantime, we have lives to live and an economy to rebuild. Never in history have healthy people been quarantined. It massively violates our Bill of Rights and probably won’t stand up to judicial review. Before we leave a suffocating debt burden to our children, let’s regain our confidence, overcome our hypochondria and get back to living normal lives.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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