Thoughts about Covid-19

This pandemic is very real and very serious. I completely agree with this. Yet, at the same time, the numbers have been exaggerated within hospital systems. I work in a large hospital in Arizona.  We have opened up additional areas for Covid patients; however, we continue to do nonemergent surgeries on patients coming from home. Though beds are tight, we do continue have the beds to admit these surgical patients. We also have some nursing shortages and have to make do. This is not unexpected during a pandemic. Mask requirements are entirely reasonable. Since data shows that masks help prevent transmission of the virus, then  it is also entirely reasonable to keep businesses open and not lockdown any country to prevent economic collapse. Since we are in a pandemic, we have to understand that there WILL be loss of life, and we need to take reasonable steps to minimize this without destroying a country due to lockdowns. People need to be personally accountable to protect themselves and others. Those that consider mask wearing to be an oppression of their rights are being ignorant. But it is an oppression of rights to be told to close your business which is your livelihood and which risks small business bankruptcies and closures. 

It is an interesting viewpoint, but it is worth pointing out that most of the big successes have involved temporary shutdowns. Yesterday, Belgium had zero deaths. There was no larger country that suffered more damage early on, so the strictest measures were appropriate to shrink the epidemic, and they managed to do so very rapidly.

A big part if the American population just does not believe the numbers. More about that later. I got to scoot right now.

Not believing important facts is a dangerous phenomenon that seems particularly common these days. Somehow this trend needs to be reversed.

Here's what I see. A good place to start is about a year ago.

A huge part, probably the majority, of the American public had lost all trust in the mainstream media. Most American thought that most of the media was much more interested in political damage to President Trump than telling the truth. But there was not a single flaming issue to light up that dissatisfaction. One side was waiting on the other side to make a wrong move so they could pounce.

Then came the Corona Virus. Most Americans were genuinely concerned about the safety and health of themselves and their families. For a month or two that was all the news and discussion across this nation, and likely most of the world. The Trump team seemed to be going the right direction in terms of managing the situation. So eventually the news died down low and the federal government stepped back out of sight and turned it over to the individual states. 

The individual states did a terrible job of managing the situation.

Then the happy blues skies grew stormy, at least that is what the mainstream media was saying. So the anti-media pro Trump camps immediately started to suspect that the Covid situation was not nearly as bad as we were being told. Wasn't everything looking good a month ago? And isn't this the same media that will tell any lie that might hurt Trump?

Then Covid-19 did a few tricks to fuel the fire - or at least the Covid experts did. Early on the virus was said to be transmitted mostly through surfaces and hands carrying it to a person's face. Later we were told that aerial transmission was the big threat. First we were told that the rare cases that were asymptomatic were probably unlikely to transmit. Later were told that most infections came from asymptomatic carriers. And then we were told that as much as 80% of cases were asymptomatic - the person had no symptoms at all but they were counted as a Covid infection. huh?

Then the federal government encourages lies and corruption by loosely offering financial help for those affected. So hospitals all over the nation call many deaths Covid deaths where clearly the patient died of other causes. The hospital gets federal money if it is called a Covid death. I have heard that from 6 different sources and I have not heard it denied yet.

We learned two new medical terms - false positive and false negative. It seems that the tests are not very reliable. Now one can hear crazy stories about how unreliable the tests are. I have actually heard all 3 of the following presented as true stories. 1) A small business decides to have all 41 of its employees tested even though none of them have symptoms. So 41 are tested and 4 days later they are told that 40 are positive for Covid-19. 2) A small business is suspicious of the test so they send in 5 swabs that have not been exposed to anything at all. 3 of the 5 came back as positive. 3) And the prize winner. A pharmacy scheduled to have all its employees tested one day. One employee didn't show up for work that day so she was not tested at all. Two days later she was notified that her test was positive for Covid-19.

So now most of the country has serious doubts about the numbers at the very same time Covid is growing tremendously.  (continued)

Add to that the fact that Americans hated the shutdown of the economy and hated being told to stay home. Add to that the fact that most Americans know that just giving away money for no reason is wrong. Add to that the fact that we are told conflicting information about the virus itself. Add all those together and what do you get? Well you get what we have now....

I have always been concerned about the virus. I am very concerned now. I now know four or five people who have it or have recovered from it. I work and a place that has been called essential so it has not been shut down at all. I am old and worn out already. I have been working 40 to 50 hours a week the whole time while I worry about getting Covid as I deal with all of the normal daily trials and tribulations.  

It isn't fun and games from where I sit. 

Being in Alabama, I give a lot of my attention to the Covid situation in my state. I get pretty good information between the Internet an the local TV news broadcasts.  The Alabama Department of Public Health has a good  web site. I keep a Covid spreadsheet in Excel and update it daily so that I can do my own analysis. I don't spend a lot of time looking at Texas and Florida since Alabama isn't much different, 

I live in Limestone County. I know that in April we were reporting about one new case per day. Now it is 20 per day. Yep, 20 cases now for every 1 in April. So I don't have to look far to see that Covid is real. My friend Dwight has it. He doesn't know how he got it. He is 66 years old but otherwise in good health. He seems to be doing OK. 

But I don't see Alabama wanting to go back into a shutdown. Honestly most Alabamians would prefer to see 1% of the population die than go back into shutdown like we had before. My opinion of course. 

That is a sad reflection on Alabamans. I feel it must be the result of incomplete understanding.

Maybe I am wrong, but I have heard people say that it is a disease that kills the old and weak and as such it is part of life.....

It only kills them if they get infected. And them not getting infected and living another 20 years is part of life as well. I can't see you choosing to catch it if you have the choice of avoiding it: am I right?

And there are also younger people who die too. Eg in New York, over a quarter of deaths were 0-64 years old.

I can't make sense out of the situation. There is just a lot of crazy stuff going on. 

Well last Thursday (5 days ago) Alabama started a "must wear a mask in public" law. It probably should have been done sooner. However better late than never. It does seem like we are about to flatten the curve on new cases in Alabama and in the county shere I live. I am feeling more hopeful than I have in a long time.

My friend Dwight who came down with Covid abuot 16 days ago is now in the hospital. He is 66 yerars old. His wife also has it now.

Alabama has had 3 good days in a row.

https://alpublichealth.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/6d2771faa9da4a2786a509d82c8cf0f7

I hope your friends are fortunate and you keep safe.

I don't see adequate responses in the US yet to the realisation that the epidemic is out of control in many states. But looking at the stats for Alabama, I see some signs they may be getting it under control. Need a few weeks of declining cases to confirm it.

Thanks Elroch. I need to check on Dwight and Angie......

As to Alabama, I am very disappointed at Mobile County and Montgomery County. They are terrible and have been terrible for weeks.....

Update. My friends have recovered from Covid.

The trend of new cases in Alabama has plateaued. Things are not great, but at least they are no longer getting worse every day.

I didn't see this discussion until just now.  I have followed the numbers closely in my county. There is a wonderful data source called Travis County Public Impact Dashboard.
https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/39e4f8d4acb0433baae6d15a931fa984
I think there are similar dashboards for other counties, and for the state of Texas.  For the time when Austin had a lockdown I was out of work and collected bonus money from the U.S. government, for 10 weeks. It was a wonderful vacation (at home) and compensated nicely for being seriously vacation-deprived in many years of my work life.  I was really hoping I could have the same idyllic lazy existence for the duration of the epidemic, but i'm not that lucky.
During the lockdown the number of cases per day was about 50 on average, in a population of 1.3 million about.   When we reopened we had a few weeks when the average cases a day were more like 400-700 a day!  Currently it is stil much higher than before, at about 300-500 cases a day usually.

My workplace scares me somewhat but not enough to keep me away. I have been arguing with them frequently trying to get them to increase the amount of ventilation and filtering. I bought one small filtration unit for $200 and I bring it to work and use it there, but it's for a small room, so we should probably have much more. I started a GoFundMe drive to buy more filter units but it's not successful (I had to push it more, not just put it on the site). The owner (tiny company) didn't like me putting it on facebook since she is following all the rules and she says it makes it seem like the workplace is dangerous.  I will be very glad when testing is easier to get.  I got a test for it but it took about 11 days to wait for an available free testing appointment and then wait for the result.  This is a nice article about how filtering can help in workplaces (on top of wearing masks and a reasonable amount of cleaning surfaces and washing hands and hand sanitizer).  https://apple.news/AaalOjPL9RvOHTCrbswnHKw

At work I am just careful to keep a mask on all the time and not get too close to others.  But this is not 100% effective.  On the plus side, encountering a contagious person is still a low probability event.  And I believe i am pretty healthy so I may be lucky not to get a bad case if I do contract the disease ever. And since it can be asymptomatic it might even be true that I've already had it & have antibodies.

Some of the folks I work with don't see the masks as important and they take them off for simple reasons like discomfort or wanting to talk to someone or for eating or drinking and that is why I am considering buying some good filter units to run in the workplace at least when I'm there.  It is hard to convince the rest of the people.  Some seem to be listening to some misinformation sources. I am worried about the political radio stations that are anti-science. And apparently there is something called Q-anon that's sort of like scientology that some of my coworkers are following.  I wish I had some good science posters to put up, or that I knew how to persuade people effectively, face to face, that the science is true.