Coronavirus: Ministry of Fear

Fish mongers sell fish and fear mongers sell fear. Newspapers have always resorted to alarming headlines to attract readers and gain ad revenue. In the past few decades television and the Internet have brought fear tactics to new levels. Every day when I open my home page there are alarming headlines all designed to gather “hits” or page views. In the age or the Internet every “hit” generates revenue, either directly or through increased ad rates.

The coronavirus has been a bonanza for the fear mongers. Almost from the first they have used excessive projections (now discredited), and alarming anecdotes to sell fear and anxiety. Covid-19, the preferred name for the virus, sounded like some alien invader even though it was just an abbreviation of corona and virus with 19 tacked on to indicate the year it started.

It is true that as of June 23 there have been 122659 deaths in the USA but let’s put that into context and avoid projections and anecdotes. The United States has a total population of about 328 Million. Every year about 2.8 Million, less than 1%, die in this country of all causes.

Total population: 3280000000

Corona test total: 27554000

Total positive: 2312000

Total deaths: 122659

Only 8.3% of those tested were positive. At the outset of the epidemic about 15% were positive. Back then, tests were only given to those with symptoms. Eighty five percent of those tested had something else. Now, we are obviously testing people without symptoms or who were infected but recovered. In any case testing positive is not the proverbial kiss of death. It is not like the bubonic plague where once the tell-tale signs appeared, you would be dead in a matter of days.

As of the morning of June 23, 122659 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus. That means the 5.3% of those who tested positive have died, but that the remaining 94.7% have so far survived. We now know that the great majority of the deceased were over age 65, with most over 80 and living in nursing homes where they had been previously confined for other medical problems.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the elderly are particularly vulnerable not because their immune systems are weak, but because their immune systems are too strong after a long lifetime of fighting off other diseases. An over-reaction of the immune systems causes inflammation and obstructs breathing. Most of the elderly who test positive for the virus usually die of pneumonia, a secondary infection.

Doctors have been treating the victims with cortisone, an anti-inflammatory even though it can have dangerous side effects if not used properly. Other doctors have prescribed Plaquinil, another anti-inflammatory, and the Z-pac to deal with the secondary infection. Critics have objected to Plaquinil, originally an anti-malaria drug, because it has not been fully tested for the virus.

It is the immune system reaction that causes the familiar symptoms—coughing, fever, and fatigue—that lay most people low for a couple of days. Most of the people infected quickly recover and develop an immunity that will protect them against future strains of the virus. People hope that a “cure” will be found but for most of us the cure is right in the immune system of our own bodies. As long experience tells us, when symptoms appear we just should take to bed and let our immune system do the job.

It is clear that the spread of the virus has been slowing down. From mid-March to mid-April the number of deaths in the USA grew from less than a hundred to more than 20000. By mid-May deaths had increased to over 80000, an increase of 300%, but by mid-June, even though the number of deaths grew to over 112000, the rate of increase was only 40%. It is slowing down enough that Governors in states that were hit very hard are beginning to open up.

Nevertheless, the fear mongers must still peddle their wares. Now they see the virus “spiking” in sunshine states where the virus originally made little headway. In Florida, for example, the number of cases from June 19 to June 23 jumped from 86000 to 100000, a 14% jump, but the number of deaths only increased from 3064 to 3170, a 3.6% increase over those five days.

The number of cases is obviously spiking because of the increase in testing. All along, medical researchers have argued that many more people have contacted the virus than have reported it. I have seen estimates that say we should multiply the number of positive results by a factor of from 3 to 100. Even if we use a mid-range multiplier and multiply the 2.3 Million positives by 22, it would appear that over 50 Million of us have contacted the virus by now. Only 122000 have died and the remainder have survived and likely become immune to further invasions. *

Of course, the threat of future invasions of the dreaded virus is now the last resort of the fear mongers. But even if it does come back in the fall, not only will many of us be immune but we also know a lot more about how to deal with it than before. We know who is in danger and who is not. We know that most young people will hardly know they have symptoms if they do get infected, especially remarkably fit athletes.

Recently, a story went viral about a group of sixteen young women who celebrated a birthday in a crowded Florida bar. Subsequently, they all tested positive for the coronavirus. The headline was alarming but if you read the story, none of them got seriously ill. They were in more danger from the alcohol they were drinking.

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*Note: I asked my scientific advisor about immunity. He replied:

99% of those who recover will be immune to it. There are always some other possibilities given individual genetic and immune differences and personal body conditions. You are probably correct with the mumps analogy having the disease and recovering from it naturally probably affords more resistance than a vaccine against the disease. For a virus whether you get a vaccine or have the actual disease will usually take about 14 days to develop full, lifetime, immunity to it.