Michael Snyder of the End of the American Dream blog shares his thoughts on The Facts That Prove That Almost Everyone Is Wrong About This Coronavirus Pandemic. Mr. Snyder is mostly trying to point out in this piece that both the group saying that Covid-19 is nothing/a hoax/the flu/etc. and those thinking it is a pandemic holocaust are wrong and that the facts show something in between.
When it comes to COVID-19, most Americans seem to be gravitating toward one of two extremes. Some are treating this pandemic like it is the end of the world, while many others are dismissing it as a “nothingburger”. But the truth is somewhere in between. Nobody can deny that lots of people are getting sick and lots of people are dying. In fact, the U.S. death toll has doubled in a little over a week and it has now shot past the 47,000 mark. And as this pandemic progresses, a lot more people are going to get sick and a lot more people are going to die, and this is going to be true whether the lockdowns continue or not. The lockdowns were never going to stop COVID-19, and anyone that believed that was just being delusional.
The only time a lockdown should be instituted is if a pandemic has gotten so bad in an area that hospitals are being absolutely overwhelmed, because if people can’t get treatment that is a factor that could potentially increase the overall death toll substantially.In most of the United States that is not happening right now, and so in most of the nation the lockdowns should be immediately ended.
But won’t a lot more people start getting sick if that happens?
Of course, and this is something that the “nothingburger” crowd doesn’t understand. Lifting the lockdowns is going to cause the virus to cycle through our population at a much faster rate, and the numbers will get pretty ugly. But as long as the medical system can handle it, lockdowns are not necessary.
What “the end of the world” crowd does not understand is that when you are dealing with a virus that spreads as easily as this one, it is inevitable that most of the population will eventually become infected. You can “flatten the curve” and delay the inevitable with lockdowns, but that also prolongs the pandemic. In the end, roughly the same number of people will get sick and roughly the same number of people will die no matter how the pandemic is “managed”.
This week, the “nothingburger” crowd has made a really big deal out of the fact that a study conducted in L.A. county discovered that about 4 percent of all residents had already developed COVID-19 antibodies, and they were trying to use that study to prove that this pandemic is not much of a threat at all.
Actually, it shows just the opposite.
This pandemic is not going to be over until herd immunity is achieved, and according to Johns Hopkins that does not happen until 70 to 90 percent of a population has developed immunity…
When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection—or herd immunity (also called herd protection)—to those who are not immune to the disease.
For example, if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick (and won’t spread the disease any further). In this way, the spread of infectious diseases is kept under control. Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 70% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity.
So let’s do some really quick math.
Let’s assume that the study conducted in L.A. County is representative of the nation as a whole and that approximately 4 percent of all Americans have now developed antibodies.
And let’s also assume that herd immunity for COVID-19 will be achieved when 80 percent of the total population has developed antibodies.
If 47,000 Americans have died at the current 4 percent level of exposure, that means that we could potentially be looking at an overall death toll of 940,000 once we hit an 80 percent exposure level.
Does anyone in the “nothingburger” crowd want to try to claim that 940,000 dead Americans is not a big deal?
I keep hearing people say that this virus “is just like the flu”, and that is absolutely absurd…(continues)
Click here to read the entire article at the End of the American Dream blog.
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