Coronavirus Blame Game

I think it too early to blame or credit politicians for the coronavirus. We just do not know enough to explain, for example, why some states have done better than others. Despite all the words, pronouncements, and executive orders, it could just be different levels of sunshine that have resulted in fewer cases and deaths in southern states like Florida and Texas, and far worse results in northern states like New York and New Jersey.

Nevertheless, as the coronavirus slows down, the blame game is beginning. This week my local newspaper ran an unsigned Associated Press story in its national news section that blamed President Trump for lack of empathy. It was more an opinion piece than a news story. Here is the headline:

U. S. nears 100000 deaths:
Does Trump feel your pain?
 Now there is another still-growing American casualty list that has exceeded deaths from the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. U.S. fatalities from the most lethal hurricanes and earthquakes pale by comparison. This is the deadliest pandemic in a century. *

The comparison between lives lost in Vietnam and deaths resulting from the coronavirus will inevitably become a mantra. Attempts to pin the blame on President Trump will just increase over the summer even as the virus peters out.

I’ve been tracking the coronavirus for the past three months and it is clear that despite 103000 deaths, the USA, from the President on down, has done a very good job of dealing with the deadliest pandemic in the century. In the USA about 6% of those who have tested positive have died while in countries like Great Britain and Italy about 14% of those who tested positive have died. In other words, if we had the same fatality rate as those two countries, we would have had almost 250000 deaths by now. **

Criticism of President Trump goes hand in hand with what can only be called Democratic immunity. Democratic politicians cannot and must not be blamed for failures to combat the virus in their own jurisdictions. On the contrary, the worse the results in their states, the more they must be praised for their efforts in the emergency. 

Try to imagine the reaction in the media if Donald Trump and not Andrew Cuomo had been Governor of New York this year. Any fair person would have to admit that Trump would have been viciously attacked for New York’s almost 30000 nation-leading deaths. Incessant attacks would have accused him of criminal incompetence and mis-management, and called for his resignation or prosecution.

I don’t put all the blame on Governor Cuomo for the fact that New York leads the nation by far in coronavirus cases and deaths, but how can he be considered a hero? It is true that he seems to do well in press conferences but he does not have to face a gang of extremely hostile reporters. In a White House press-conference a young reporter dared to ask President Trump if someone who had been responsible for more deaths during the current crisis than occurred during the Vietnam war, should consider re-election? Did any reporter dare to ask Governor Cuomo a similar question?

Try to imagine the response in the media if President Trump had fired his chief medical officer in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Rumors of such an act resulted in headlines attacking the President for even thinking about it. On the other hand, Governor Lamont of Connecticut, a state which comes in second to New York in deaths per capita, recently dumped his chief medical officer with hardly a protest from the local media. Tiny Connecticut has one of the highest per-capita coronavirus death cases in the nation. But it was called an internal re-organization. Moreover, the official was a black woman. Imagine the charges of racism that would have been levelled against Donald Trump if he had been Connecticut’s governor.

Try to imagine the reaction if Donald Trump had been accused of molesting a female staffer in his office 20 years ago. Would well-known female politicians and media types be defending him against the woman’s charges. Wouldn’t they be calling for his resignation just because the woman must be believed? Now, when the charges are raised against Joe Biden, leading female Democratic politicians are angling to become his running mate.

Try to imagine the reaction if in the last three years President Trump’s son had become a director of a foreign energy company at a salary of over $600000 per year. When Democratic politicians were seeking grounds for impeachment of President Trump, they even complained that a night spent at the Trump Tower by the Ukrainian President constituted a criminal conflict of interest.

I like to ask Trump haters if they can think of one thing that President Trump has done right in the first three plus years of his Presidency. Invariably, their jaws drop and a vacant look comes over their face. It is obvious that they cannot think of even one accomplishment. This response tells me that despite all of the President’s perceived faults, his detractors cannot be objective.

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*Associated Press: CT Post 5/27/2020

** Note. The USA has a population of about 328 Million. So far 1.722 Million have tested positive and 103349 deaths have been attributed to the virus. Great Britain has a population of 66 Million, and 271000 have tested positive with 37919 deaths. Italy has a population of about 60 Million, and 232000 have tested positive with 33142 deaths. The virus struck Italy weeks before the USA and seems to have run its course as both new cases and deaths have dramatically decreased.

Memorial Day 2020

Yesterday in the United States of America we celebrated Memorial Day, a day devoted to honor and remember America’s veterans, especially those who gave their lives in the call of duty. It is a kind of paradox that while we consider ourselves a peace-loving people, we have been at war practically throughout our history.

From 1775 we fought the Revolutionary war to secure independence from Great Britain. After that, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the new Republic, thought that America would never go to war again because the Atlantic ocean would be a barrier to aggressors. For this reason he dismantled the American armed forces while the Napoleonic wars were ravaging Europe. He also believed that the value of the trade and commerce of the United States would be a more potent weapon than ships and guns. 

Since then, however, practically every generation of Americans has seen war. From 1812-1815 we fought the War of 1812. From 1846 to 1848 we fought the Mexican war after the annexation of Texas.  From 1861 to 1865 we were engaged in our Civil War, the bloodiest in history until that time.  Memorial Day traces its origins to that conflict. In 1898 we fought the Spanish-American war against the tottering Spanish empire. 

In 1917 the United States became involved at the tail end of the European conflict that will always be remembered as the First World War. WWI  was supposed to be the War that ended all wars but only a generation later America became involved in the Second World War after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. That terrible conflict ended in 1945 with the unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan.

Since then American forces have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Today, our military commitments are stretched all over the globe. 

I have never served in the military. I was born in 1939 only two years before American entered World War II. I was too young in 1950 to be drafted into service in 1950 when the Korean War broke out. During the Vietnam era I was deferred from service because of my student, teacher and marital status. Luck kept me out of war but I must confess that I never had any desire to serve in the military. 

Nevertheless, I always have had a great admiration for those who entered harm’s way. I admit that I was and am an avid armchair soldier. Even as a child my interest in history spilled over into military history. I remember reading daily accounts of the events in Korea as American troops were steadily pushed back by overwhelming numbers, and then rejoicing when General Macarthur’s daring land and sea flanking maneuver turned the tide.

Since that time I have never stopped reading military history and historical novels. The best historical writing will try to avoid the excesses of propaganda and present the good, the bad, and the ugly on both sides of any conflict. Good war films should also have this quality. Here is a list of personal favorites that portray ordinary soldiers in extraordinary times.

Audie Murphy in Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage. John Huston’s adaptation of Stephen Crane’s classic Civil War novel of the same name stars the baby-faced Audie Murphy who was incidentally the most decorated American soldier of WW II. The real stars, however, are the many other actors who so realistically portray ordinary soldiers.

Clark Gable with flight crew

Command Decision. Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon starred in this gripping WW II drama of high-level decision-making in the light of terrible losses of B17 flight crews on missions over Germany. The film was made after the War and was based on a Broadway play.  As a result, the dialogue is superb.

Gregory Peck

Twelve O‘ Clock High. This film starred Gregory Peck as an Air Force general faced with the difficult task of reviving a demoralized bomber command that was reeling from unacceptable losses. Dean Jagger won an Oscar for best supporting actor. I recall that this film was used later by corporate sales organizations for its lessons on how to get the most out of your people.

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews, Frederic March

The Best Years of Our Lives. Dana Andrews and Frederic March starred in this 1946 film about veterans returning from WW II. Their performances were matched by Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Kathy O'Donnell as the women who stayed behind and held the fort. The film also featured Harold Russell, a young sailor who lost both his hands in action.

A Foreign Field. This little known British film about veterans returning to Normandy on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day begins as a somewhat light comedy but then becomes serious, very serious, and then deeply moving. It features a handful of movie greats at the end of their careers. Alec Guinness, Leo Mc Kern, Lauren Bacall, Jeanne Moreau, and Geraldine Chaplin all give magnificent performances. 

Gettysburg. This 1993 254 minute epic film brilliantly recreates the famous battle that was the turning point of the Civil War. It was based on Michael Shaara's book, The Killer Angels. and stars Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Martin Sheen as Gen. Robert E. Lee. The film is sympathetic and fair to those who fought and died on both sides. We call it the Civil War but every war is a civil war.

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Coronavirus Masks

Why are we wearing masks?

A. To protect us from being infected by others.
B. To protect others from being infected by us.
C. Both A and B

D. Something else.

In the case of A, since more than 99% of the population has either not been infected, or has recovered from the infection, I do not see the reason to fear my neighbors on my daily walks. Most of them look very fit and healthy. In my town of Fairfield there are about 60000 residents. In its weekly update the town informed us that so far 531 of us have tested positive for the coronavirus and  99 have died. Of those who have died 69 were over 80, 15 were between 70 and 79, and 10 were between 60 and 69. About 85% of those who have died were already in nursing homes.

Only 3 deaths were recorded among those under the age of 60. People in this age bracket are the ones I see on my walks. I see youngsters riding their bikes or scooters; middle-agers walking their dogs; and remarkably fit young men and women jogging. They certainly are not sick or coughing.

Still, as a vulnerable Senior I have been confining myself to my home and avoiding contact with others except for my wife. I have also been maintaining safe distance rules. No one else has been in our home for the past three months except the Cable guy who came this week to change the cable box. However, on entering he put booties over his shoes, wore gloves, and a mask.

Nevertheless, even if you are in close contact with an infected person, and even if your mask is the kind that keeps out 95% of the germs, it can still constitute a danger. Most people contact the virus not by breathing it in the air but by touching their mouth, nose or eyes. Actually, the great value of the mask is that it prevents the incessant touching of the face that humans constantly do unwittingly. Here are the thoughts of my scientific advisor on the proper use of the masks.

I would mention that there is a proper procedure used by doctors and nurses when removing gloves so as to not contaminate themselves. They grab one glove at the wrist and remove it inside out and the do the same with the other. I have not seen anyone in the news show a proper way to remove a mask so as to avoid contamination if the outside of the mask has virus on it. I have watched many people touch the outside of the mask while taking it off. Now just imagine there were contaminated droplets on it and now they touch their itchy nose or eyes or mouth. They could have inadvertently introduced the virus into their body.

In the case of B, does the mask prevent us from infecting others? A Yale professor recently wrote,

The virus-containing droplets that we all emit by simply speaking spread to cover your neighbor’s entire body. Touch your clothing and then your face and the virus makes its way to the wet membranes (eyes, mouth, nose) of your face. Because this virus is so virulent, it doesn’t take much to infect you. This is why clinicians who treat infectious patients wear head to toe protective equipment: hair coverings, masks, face shields, gloves and full length, long sleeve gowns. We can avoid that burden if we all wear masks. The mask you wear traps these droplets at the source before they spread to your neighbor

Like many, the professor believes that millions of us have been infected and even though we have no obvious symptoms, we can spread the virus to others without knowing it. We don’t even have to be coughing out the droplets. Just plain speaking will cover a neighbor’s body from head to foot with the virus that will then manage the journey to their mouths and nasal passages.

According to the professor, we must wear masks to catch the deadly virus before it leaves our bodies. We are to walk around all day with a mask full of droplets of saliva that contain trillions of the coronavirus. However, when we get home and remove the mask we touch it with our fingers and inevitably wind up scratching our noses, rubbing our eyes, or eating something with our fingers.

As mentioned above my wife and I have quarantined for ourselves for three months without a single symptom of the virus. We can’t be asymptomatic since we have not infected each other. I don’t see myself as a danger to anyone. I am not coughing our droplets. If I had such a cough, I think it better to go outside and cough the virus laden droplets out into the sunshine which we now know quickly destroys the coronavirus. I certainly would not want to be coughing into a mask. Of course, if it was a really bad cough I would call my doctor.

Finally, my scientific advisor also tells me that there are potentially harmful side effects from wearing masks. We take in less oxygen than we need, and we retain more of the carbon dioxide that we need to expel from our bodies. I do not understand why people wear masks while outdoors riding their bicycles or exercising. Do they believe that the virus is just floating around in the air? Is this why people wear masks while driving their cars with the windows open?

I do understand that it might be necessary to wear a mask in closed environments like a hospital room but to suggest that the whole population must be masked boggles the mind.

Ultimately, I believe that many people are now wearing masks out of fear, an irrational fear that has been spread to an entire population by the media that has a large stake in continually alarming its viewers and readers.


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Coronavirus and Sunshine

Why have some states done so much better in combatting the coronavirus, and others so much worse? The answer is complicated but one of the reasons would seem to be sunshine. The actual figures show that states in the so-called sunshine belt have had far better results than states in the northern part of the country.

In high sunshine states from Florida across the southern border to California, the results have been markedly better. The national average of deaths per million is 258. As of May 14 heavily populated Florida has had only 1829 deaths or 85 deaths per million. California, the most populous state, has had only 2966 deaths, or 75 per million even though their cities are among the most heavily populated in the country. Among the large states Texas leads the pack with only 1217 deaths, a phenomenal rate of 42 deaths per million. *

On the other hand, northern states like New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have the worst record by far. New York’s 27290 deaths amount to 1403 deaths per million, more than five times the National average of 238, even though its figures make up part of the National average. New Jersey comes in second with 9727 deaths and a death rate of 1095 per million. Tiny Connecticut’s 3125 deaths put it in third place with a death rate of 877 per million residents. Is it a coincidence that Connecticut’s Governor has just fired his health Director?

The disparities in these numbers would seem to indicate that human efforts to control the virus are not as significant a factor as nature. When I started writing about the virus two months ago, I consulted my brother, a biologist and teacher, who from the outset argued that as the days grew longer in the Spring, the increased sunshine would replenish the amount of Vitamin D in our bodies, and build up the ability of our immune system to combat its effects.

Here are his latest thoughts on the subject:

When I was in college, I don't remember ever having any course where viruses where seriously taught. I learned more about them as they became part of my AP Biology curriculum, but even then I was just scratching the surface as so much more has been learned about them since the advent of HIV and AIDS. I recently read an article from about 2018 in a Harvard publication which claimed that Vitamin D is more effective that the vaccines currently used against the flu. It seems that not only does Vitamin D lessen the severity of the flu but can actually limit the number of viruses infecting cells to a point where a person will be asymptomatic. Many people claim they never have gotten the flu. I don't believe that I have ever gotten the flu either; however, those people and myself probably do get infected but mount an immune response so effective that it prevents the virus from getting a foothold in the body.

Antioxidants found in fruit and berries such as blueberries coupled with Vitamin D could be just as effective as any vaccine against the corona virus. Olives and Olive oil is one of the substances which contains high levels of antioxidants. The role of antioxidants is a little complicated but in short they play a major role in controlling the inflammatory response.

In addition to the Sun’s role as a source of Vitamin D, sunshine also appears to make outdoors a very dangerous place for the millions of microscopic viruses that can be found in one cough. A recent study from the Homeland Security agency demonstrated that the combination of higher temperatures and humidity is fatal to the virus. 

I speculated that most of the virus horde would not be able to survive the incredibly long (given the size of the virus) and dangerous journey from one host to another. Here is my brother’s response. 

Airborne viral survival is tricky. As you know many factors influence its survival. Humidity, Temperature, UV radiation, wind speed and how much the virus is coated with water or mucus expelled by the host. Under certain conditions 6 feet is probably not sufficient distance which is why when I have to wait on lines to enter a store I make sure the wind is at my back.  

I believe many people have inadvertently contracted the virus by touching the outside of their mask and then touching their nose or mouth once they took the mask off.  As long as you are away from another person, I see no problem in coughing out the virus into the air but some people naturally will cough onto their hand and then touch something like a door knob with the virus waiting for someone else to touch it. 

It would appear that the southern states have already weathered the storm. Coincidentally, the growth of the virus has subsided dramatically in sunny Italy during the past few weeks. In the meantime, it is necessary to still practice caution in the Northern states. Still, the combination of higher temperatures and humidity should make outdoors the safest place to be.

* Louisiana is an outlier among the southern states with a death rate of 512 per million residents. A good reason was given in the video linked above.

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Coronavirus Survivors

Coronavirus Survivors

Let’s look at the coronavirus figures this year in the USA.

The population of the country is about 328 Million. So far about 7.2 million of us (2.3%) have been tested. Practically all of the tests have been done on people with symptoms but only about 1.2 Million (16%) have tested positive. The other 84% had some other reason for their symptoms. Of those who have tested positive 72284 have died, a death rate of about 6%. 

On the other side of the coin, 94% of those who tested positive, over 1.1 Million people, have survived the infection so far.

But wait a minute.

Scientific researchers tell us that the number of those testing positive must be multiplied to include those who have or had symptoms, ranging from negligible to severe, but have not reported them.  I have seen estimates that suggest that the number of positive cases must be multiplied by anywhere from 3 to 100 times the number of confirmed cases. Recent evidence from New York indicates that the actual multiplier is about 22.

In that case the number of people infected by the virus would be about 26.5 Million (1204000 x 22). The number of actual deaths (72804) represents less than one tenth of one percent of those infected. Looking at it another way, over 26 Million people, 99.7 percent of those infected, have so far survived.

 Cases                 1204000 x 22 =            26488000 infected

Deaths:                  72284 or 6%                    72284 or .2729%

Survivors:           1131716 or 84%            26415716 or .9973%

The U.S. health care systems seems to be doing a remarkably good job. As noted above the number of those who have died (72000) divided by the number of reported cases (1204000) is 6%. In the United Kingdom, the rate is over 15% (29500/196000), and in Italy the rate is 13.8% (29315/213013).  

Nevertheless, although the increase in the number of deaths is slowing, 72000 still beats what we have experienced during normal winter flu seasons. Perhaps the virus is more virulent than others but there could be other factors involved.

In the United States, a country of about 328 Million people, the death rate has been increasing over the past few years even before the coronavirus epidemic. Every year, about 2.5 Million people die in this country, less than 1% of the total population. In 2016 .008475 percent of the population died; in 2017 it was .00858 percent; and in 2018 .008685 percent. The reason for the increase is obviously demographic. The population of the country is aging and the so-called baby boomers are dying out.

I was born in 1939 and technically not a baby boomer, but I have been a witness to the phenomenon for most of my life. Despite the natural tendency of humans to complain, the baby boomers have been the longest lived, the most prosperous, and the most fortunate generation in the history of the world. But now that the eldest of them are 75, the number of deaths in this country must inevitably increase over the next few years. 

Great advances in technology, nutrition, and medicine have kept us alive so that the life expectancy in this country has reached an average of 78.6 years, much higher than it was back in 1945. 

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, “everybody dies.” In 2017, 647000 died of heart disease, and 600000 died of cancer, the two greatest killers.  Chronic lower respiratory tract disease caused about 160000 deaths while strokes claimed another 146000. Alzheimer’s, another malady of the elderly, claimed about 120000 lives, and diabetes was responsible for 84000. Finally, 57000 died of flu and pneumonia. 

In the current crisis, the elderly, especially those with other problems like hypertension, diabetes, and dementia have been particularly vulnerable. For some reason, our immune systems overreact to the virus and cause inflammation and eventually pneumonia.  Thus, the reason for the ventilators. 

In Connecticut it has been reported that more than 50% of the 2556 victims have been elderly residents of nursing homes. In my own town here in Connecticut there have been 423 people who have tested positive for the virus, and 72 have died. Of the 72, 86% were residents of nursing homes. I am not blaming nursing homes, hospitals, or the people who serve in the health care system in this country. The very great majority of their patients have survived. 

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