HERD IMMUNITY

I believe the coronavirus pandemic is overstated and the wrong approach is being used. First, the 1957-58 Asian flu (H2N2) resulted in a stated 69,800 deaths in the USA; the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) resulted in approx. 100,000 deaths in the USA. The country, and indeed the world, was not shut down as now. The concept of “Herd Immunity” where the low risk populations go about their normal work and every day activities may be the best solution. The proponents of this view, which include medical specialists, believe that by exposing these relatively young and healthy individuals they would become immune to the disease and therefore the disease would die out for lack of hosts. Of course, the older and health challenged people (I include me) should still be protected as much as possible. How to protect these people without overtly discriminating against them is somewhat of a dilemma. Perhaps the best approach should be trying to persuade them to protect themselves rather than by demanding that they do so by “social distancing”, wearing protective masks in public, and not congregating in crowded places such as restaurants, sporting events, or other social gatherings. This too, as the cliché goes, will pass. A central idea to this concept, supported by more and more studies, shows that the number of people who have contacted the coronavirus is greatly understated by an order of magnitude or even by a factor of 20 or more. In New York (19 counties) a study of 7500 people were tested with a positive of 15% (extrapolated to 2.9 million cases) of the population. This gives a death rate of about 0.01%; In a study in Miami, Dade County 6% of the population tested positive which gives a 0.1% death rate, 16 times the number of reported cases; A study in Los Angles County showed approx. 4.1% were infected which yielded a total of 221.000 to 442,000, making that 28 to 55 higher than the 8000 confirmed; Similar results were found in studies in Iceland, Germany, and Australia. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a large-scale COVID-19 diagnostic testing effort in Iceland found 43% of positive cases reported no symptoms and there was a low rate of infections in children under 10 years of age. The University of Bonn in Germany randomly tested a group of 1000 people in the city of Gangelt, one of the area’s most heavily infested, and found 2% of the population had the virus and 14% had antibodies. Approx. 15% had been infected suggesting a mortality rate of 0.37%. The seasonal flu mortality rate is 0.1%. The SARS mortality rate was 9.6% and the MERS mortality rate was 34.4% according to Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In Australia the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison said, “The incidents of cases amongst younger recovered people is much lower than the rest of the population.” According to Graham T. Allison, political scientist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, of the current 66, 000+ deaths in the USA fewer than 100 of these are people under 25 years old and fewer than 1000 for people under 45 years old. The deaths of those who are 65 years old or more comprise 80% of the total deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) once stated that 3.4% of people getting COVID-19 would die. Two new studies now state this number is 0.1%. If this is representative of this pandemic then it is highly contagious, but also highly fragile and not nearly as deadly as is now being assumed. Additionally it may well be that some of the deaths were overstated. Pathologists in some states were pressured into putting on death certificates the cause of death being COVID-19 even if they had doubts that was the case. Wall Street Journal headline: “Flawed Data: Covid-19 Deaths Much Lower Than Expected”. The WSJ raised the distinct possibility that the numbers of deaths due to the coronavirus are so flawed that the lockdowns of the order we have seen have not been necessary. Auxiliary effects due to the lockdown are the increases in divorces, domestic violence, illegal drug use and suicides. Others negative affects of the shutdown in the USA are that many people are not being treated for other medical procedures and examinations, even serious ones, either because they are afraid of going to medical facilities or they are not allowed to go to make room for COVID-19 patients. This resulted in premature deaths of some of these would be patients. The fear was that hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Because of this lockdown the opposite happened – ironically some hospitals were shutdown owing to a lack of these other patients. It has even been reported some parents were not showing up to get the usual vaccinations for their children, putting their children and other children at risk when schools reopen. According to some medical experts, If children get COVID-19 there is a extremely low probably that they will pass it on to other children or adults and have a near zero probably of dying from it themselves. This tells me that schools should immediately be reopened and perhaps should not have been closed initially. Seasonal flu is more dangerous to children than the coronavirus and schools do not close because of it. There is no correlation between how quickly some states locked down relative to others and the number of deaths from COVID-19 on a per capita basic. An unrealistic fear has gripped this nation, at least partially owing to the original overly pessimistic numbers of contagions, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from the coronavirus. The words of then President Franklin Roosevelt at his first presidential inaugural address in 1933 concerning the Great Depression the country was in seem apt now: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” When this coronavirus pandemic is over one can be sure there will be extensive post-mortems on the methods used to combat it, the lengths and extent of these interventions, and if some or all of these were necessary or even helpful. It is easily predicable there will be no complete consensus among the experts and the not so experts. Nevertheless I am willing to wait until there is more evidence to decide whether I am closer to the truth about this pandemic than the politicians and TV commentators and their guests, especially on MSNBC and CNN, but also to a lesser extent on ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post who insist that closing down the economy for an extended period of time effectively controlled this pandemic. I say not. Then there is the seemingly profligate spending of several $trillions for the genuine desire to help the millions of small businesses and previously employed and retired people, especially when this country already had a $24 trillion debt. There can be no reasonable conclusion other than inflation, previously under control, will reignite and might well do so as soon as later this year. To me the key, as it has been said a number of times, is that it is extremely important not to let the cure be more harmful than the disease – in this case the potential long term harm to the economy which could cause many millions of people in the USA to be financially, morally, and medically irreparably injured.