As I walked the streets this morning, death was everywhere. I saw bodies lining the sidewalk, too many to count and no one to carry them away. Everywhere I looked I was met with the glassy stare of the almost-dead desperately seeking help while gasping for their last breath. We were warned about this. The damned virus is killing everyone. It is nearly 100% lethal.
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At least that’s what I expected to see. Because that’s the picture being painted by the government and the media. We’re being led to believe that no one is safe from the virus and, if you catch it, it’s a certain death sentence. But that’s not true. It is true there are people dying from COVID-19, but the overwhelming majority of people who contract the disease will be just fine.
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The virus appears to attack at random with seemingly no known pattern. Most people are perfectly healthy one day and at death’s door the next. Without a way to anticipate who will be the next victim, it’s impossible to know who’s most at risk and what precautions we need to take to protect them.
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That’s not true either. We know that most people who become infected with COVID-19 recover with no lingering issues. In fact, a large percentage of people who contract the disease won’t even know they had it. We also know that most of the people who have died from COVID-19 had preexisting medical conditions (94% of the people had comorbidities according to the CDC). If you contract the disease while you’re relatively young and healthy, there’s a good chance that you’ll have minor or no symptoms and recover, unremarkably, on your own. So, all we need to do is to find a way to protect the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions without shutting down everything.
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We’ve been told government knows best. They carefully watching the track of the disease and tell us that things are going to go from very bad to very much worse. The numbers of cases and deaths rise daily and that means that we’re all likely to die soon if we don’t take action. This could be the end of the human race.
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Let’s back up a bit. If you have a preexisting medical condition, and contract the disease, you’re likely to die from it. However, if you didn’t have a preexisting medical condition in the first place, then contracting the disease probably wouldn’t prove fatal. (note: I’m purposely including being elderly as a preexisting medical condition)
In Joseph Heller’s novel, “Catch-22”, a soldier is trying to find a way to get out of dangerous missions. He finds out that some soldiers are being discharged because of insanity. So, he claims that he’s insane. But his superiors say that by claiming to be insane, he’s actually proven himself to be sane. Because any sane person would claim he is insane to avoid flying bombing missions. Due to this logic, he ultimately isn’t discharged and has to resume flying missions. The term “Catch-22” has come to mean a circumstance from which there is no escape as a result of circular logic.
I know what you’re thinking, “Mike, where the hell are you going with this?” I’m glad you asked.
People with preexisting medical conditions who die from COVID-19 are being counted as a COVID-19 death. The logic is that, had they not contracted the disease, they would have continued to live while continuing to enjoy the same poor health that they had.
If they weren’t already sick, they probably wouldn’t have died from the disease. But, since they were already sick, the disease possibly contributed to or hastened their death. That’s a Catch-22.
If someone dies with COVID-19 but has a preexisting condition, their death should be attributed to their initial, already-really-sick condition and not COVID-19. After all, if they hadn’t been elderly, or obese, or had heart problems, or been sick with something else that was already trying to kill them, the symptoms associated with COVID-19 probably wouldn’t have killed them either.
Similarly, if you die, for whatever reason, and postmortem tests show that you were infected, you’re counted as a COVID-19 death. There are people who have died from major wounds as the result of an accident, tested positive for COVID-19, and were counted as a COVID-19 death. Those people obviously didn’t die from the disease, they died from massive blood loss or internal injury. So, they shouldn’t count as a COVID-19 death.
The number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 is inflated and used by the media and the government to make you think we’re on the brink of an apocalypse. But we’re not. If you want to see what’s really happening, you have to consider more than just the raw number of deaths.
There is no COVID-19 apocalypse and there’s no need to panic. Because, unless you’re already really sick, you’re probably going to be fine. The fact is, the mortality rates attributed to COVID-19 simply don’t apply to most people. Most people are relatively young and/or healthy, and most people aren’t going to die from an accident anytime soon. Simply put, everyone does not have the same risk of dying from COVID-19.
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The unpredictable nature of the virus forced us to simply assume that any of us could be the next to die. So, the government’s only choice was to suspend the Constitution and enforce a total lockdown.
People are isolated from friends and family, neighbors are turning against neighbors and encouraged to report any unauthorized gatherings. Everyone is looking out for themselves and hoarding essential supplies.
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OK. This part is partially true. Local governments are once again forcing a shutdown, keeping people in their homes and taking a hammer to the economy. This is a repeat of the “temporary” shutdowns from earlier this year that were supposed to make everything better. And we’re already starting to once again see long for essentials like cleaning supplies and toilet paper.
It’s time to stop acting like the world is coming to an end and start using a commonsense approach to preventing the disease. We know who is most at risk so let’s put procedures in place to protect them, but not at the expense of everyone. Instead of using a sledgehammer, we should be using a scalpel.
