The biggest somewhat similar epidemic in our history was the Spanish Flu in 1918 killing millions of people. Why was this one different? First off, they lacked all the medical advances developed in the last 100 years. Secondly, it was a new strain and so there was no herd immunity, just like the current pandemic. Infection rates soared. Thirdly, that flu affected a lot of younger people because the virus caused the immune system to go into overdrive as described in #5 above. So these otherwise healthy people died not so much directly from the flu, but was a result of their body's response to the virus.
Infection and Fatality Rates
Coming up with real data to drive decisions about managing the pandemic is very difficult because the data are changing rapidly and aren't reliable yet. For example, we still have no idea how many people have been infected, although the experts believe it's many more than the documented number. After it's over, next year, we'll be able to look back and see what really happened. But until we know that, planning now for the worst is the best policy.
1) We have no good estimate of how many people are or have actually been infected. The 2% number is based on the extremely limited amount of testing that has been done, almost exclusively in symptomatic people. Until we find out later how many people who never had symptoms or weren't tested for other reasons were actually infected e.g. by the presence of COVID-19 antibodies in their blood, this number is completely unreliable but as the only one available. How much should we rely on this number to drive public policy?
2) Determining the cause of death is similarly difficult. From what I've read, some coroners put down "COVID-19" when they don't know with any reliability what the true cause is. Conversely, if an elderly person with various diseases is infected and dies without showing COVID-19 symptoms, without an autopsy (which are very rarely performed these days), the cause is likely to be listed as Heart Failure or Natural Causes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504663/
Articles abound with coherent arguments that the real death rate is lower than the officially reported one, and others argue the opposite. At this point, I'd say nobody really has any idea.
Here's a more in depth discussion about the death rate and the difficulty in coming up with one that makes sense:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200401-coronavirus-why-death-and-mortality-rates-differ
3) If a terminal cancer patient is also COVID-19 positive and dies today, is it fair to charge that against COVID-19?
4) What about the people with COVID-19 infection or an unrelated medical condition, who could have recovered but died because there was no capacity to treat them due to the pandemic's overwhelming impact on the health care system? These are indirect casualties, whose deaths result from, but aren't a direct consequence of COVID-19; should their deaths be counted against COVID-19?
A Silver Lining - the Political Perspective - What can we Learn?
When a catastrophe happens, the way we've always done things doesn't always work at least in the short term. It's an opportunity that sadly we often miss because we don't want to politicize a catastrophe. But if not now, when? There is an aphorism attributed to Machiavelli and used by others, including Winston Churchill, Never let a good crisis go to waste. A crisis strips away what's not important to reveal what is important if we pay attention.
Our economic system resulting massive wealth inequality, allowing the wealthy to operate with a different set of rules (like Bloomberg buying himself a podium at a debate), is not governed by any natural law. Our economic system is a network of rules designed by people and we can change them. But first let's look at a few things that have become much more obvious due to the pandemic crisis.
1) We (or at least some of us not in denial) have become acutely aware of how interconnected and independent we have become. Long gone are the days of the 18th Century when we could go off into the woods and live on our own at least for most of us.
2) We have become more aware of just how much we all (including the very rich) depend on low-paying workers, not to mention undocumented workers picking our crops. When sick, these low paid workers, living paycheck-to-paycheck, must still go to work. In a pandemic like this, sick people going to work, especially those preparing food, greatly contributes to the spread of the disease to people far beyond their socio-economic status.
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