CoVid Culture - Is suicide Painless?

I finally found some stats on suicide in Oregon. There was an article in the Oregonian – Oregonians have died at a rate well above the aversive since mid-March (Updated April 29^th as of this writing).  It shows that between MARCH 15^TH to April 19^th 245 Oregonians died from suicide.  On average we usually would have almost 90 in that same period.  That means that 155 more died than what is considered average.  As of this writing (05/26/2020) there have been 148 deaths in total due to SARS CoV 2 (CV19).

Note that there have been no new deaths since Friday May 22^nd and only 22 new cases recorded. 

According to World population Review – Suicide by States Oregon has lost 825 people so far in 2020.  On average Oregon saw 70 suicides a month in 2019.  That would be 350 by the end of May.  Yet we have more than doubled that (about a 230% increase).

The Oregonian article indicated that “It is unclear if other fallout from the pandemic, including fear of seeking health care,” was the cause of this. And that is true, interviewing dead people pose technical difficulties that we have not surmounted. On the other hand the reason folks are afraid to seek medical care is because of the CV19.

But given common factors of suicide we can determine; the economic downturn, social isolation, and other depressive contributing factors that have all been forced on us, it seems unlikely that the restrictions were not at least a contributing factor.  It is known that people who attend Spiritual worship or social events tend to be less likely to commit suicide.

Without question these people were troubled to start with.  That argument indicates that they are less valuable than others.  I for one can’t promote that premise.

Again the question is when is the prevention worse than the disease? It seems to me if we are losing twice as many or more to suicide than CV19 that maybe we passed that point in April.  It is now the end of May. 

Re-opening “everything” does come with its risks.  The original idea was to “reduce the wave” so that our hospitals could keep up.  Hospitals are now closing because they don’t have enough patients to stay open. 

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

There is some hope for a vaccine, though no timeline on that can be promised.  Given what we learned from SARS CoV (The 2002 Corona Strain), that gave us a leg up on the SARS CoV 2 (CV19). But there is still no guarantee.  A Little vaccine history lesson here.

Developing a “herd immunity” at this point may only be achieved through exposure. So when do we start that treatment?

The other costs that can’t be calculated are the labor drought that seems to be starting to show up. With all the stimulus, in some cases, it makes more economic sense for people to stay at home.  These people are the one ones that work mostly for small business.  Small Business employes 80% of the workforce. If they have to raise salaries to attract people, that increases inflation.  Add that to the value of the US Dollar that will eventually drop because we just “Made up” money for the stimulus.

We currently live with SARS, MERS, H3N2 (Hong Kong Flu from the 1968 Pandemic) as well as many others.  We will see many deaths from CV19.  Remember the initial count was in the multimillions in the US alone.  That now seems unlikely.  As states open it will be important to see if the spike that will happen starts to tax our now reduced hospital capacity. But we are on a war footing now.  Those hospitals can be re-opened.  Most states have started to store up capacity for consumable medical supplies that were depleted by earlier administrations on every level.

A question to answer is when is it better to open up?  Now when the weather is getting brighter, and the conditions for spread are as low as they can get? Or wait until fall, when we are all living indoors more and have less exposure to the big bright natural disinfector in the sky (The Sun)?

Governor Kate Brown, How many suicides do you want to be responsible for? 

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

Crunching the Numbers – The Safety Third Idea

We hear about the “New Normal”, I have even talked about this in previous posts.  But I mean something different.  I don’t mean the drastic changes society “must” make to survive this.  I mean the risk management to get back to what normal always returns to. We talk about this technological age, and “how different” things are now than 2000 years ago.  But is it really?  Sure we can circle the globe in hours literally, in less than an hour in orbit, everything has the same purpose, we are just better at it.

The wheel brought the engine that brought the airplane.  In the end it boils down to getting places to gather food, provide shelter, and reproduce.  We earn money to gather food and purchase shelter.  But the essentials are the same. They have gathered food, made families, and sought to improve their current station.  Every change to society, including the 1791 “Great Experiment,” was to define or support “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

There are very scary numbers regarding our current pandemic. If you look at just the total numbers, it is frightening. But you don’t live your life based on that kind of information. If you only looked at “total numbers,” we would not have 5-gallon buckets (Kills more children 5 and under than anything else), Drive or ride in a car (38,800 killed in 2019), or stay at home.  In the United States (2018 numbers) 49 people out of every 100k die from “unintentional accidents” (this includes car accidents). In Oregon 2.9 out 100k have died so far from CV19.  I wish I could guarantee your safety at home, but to be honest, you are at risk staying at home. 

The Numbers are scary!

Is it really?  There are a few things about the numbers we must acknowledge.  

1. Many to the “Confirmed cases” are diagnosed by fever, inability to smell, or respiratory distress.  The number of diseases that present with these symptoms is amazing. Including one corona type virus, we have been fighting forever, the common cold.

2. Of the People told to take a test because they are symptomatic, only 35% test positive.  

3. We know people who tested positive, died of other diseases (Cancer, heart failure, etc) has been counted as CV19 deaths.   (April 7th Dr. Brix at the CV19 Task Force Press Conference).  There is no doubt that people who died from other issues are being counted as CV19 Death.

We can’t know the true numbers until we have reliable tests for antibodies as well as the diseases itself, as well as every person is tested live or has an autopsy.  That is not happening. It is not possible.

Our current numbers US/Oregon:

US Population (est.): 329,000,000 >>(See Notes)
*Confirmed Cases: 1,611,297 (Increase of 161,161 over May 15th numbers)
Total Deaths: 95,213 (an increase of 8,606 over May 15th numbers)
**Total Recovered: 308,625
Death Rate: 5.91% (unadjusted numbers)

About Oregon?

Oregon Population (est.): 4,180,000
*Confirmed Cases: 3,817 (Increase of 338 over May 15th numbers)
Total Deaths: 145 (an increase of 8 over May 15th h numbers)
**Total Recovered: Unreported by Oregon
Death Rate: 3.70% unadjusted numbers, that is 35.71% below the national average))

In the last week, Oregon cases have slowed to a crawl. More people are getting tested, and the rate of increase is slowing every week. I keep hearing Mayor Cuomo if New York City touting the “Even if it saves just one life” line. Yet that is a marketing fallacy.  This was never about saving individual lives, because this kind of restriction can’t save lives it can only reduce the risk.  Then the question is when is the prevention worse than the disease. 

Safety third:

Mike Rowe has often talked about “safety third” and has espoused on this theme in several interviews and blog posts (Mike Rowe – “Walk me through this “Safety Third Thing”).  

We now know, because China did not acknowledge the early stages of the epidemic there, it turned in to a pandemic.  Because China restricted travel inside the country but not only allowed but encouraged foreigners to leave, without testing or notifying the destination countries of the risk, we have a pandemic.   There is evidence that New York, California, and Washington state have been fighting this since 2019.  All of our “authoritative models” have been wrong. Not by just a little.  

It is time for Oregon to open.  Washington County, where I live) is considered one of the Oregon “Hot Spots” but it has only one 5th of the cases in Oregon.  Washington County has about one 5th of the population of the state. So it is not “overly infected” really. It just has one of the most densely populated counties. Imagine that!

We should be realistic about what we are doing.  If you are high risk, maybe sequester is the right choice.  As for me – I will not offer my hand out of respect for your distance.  But I should have a shirt or hat made that says “Will Hug or handshake on request.”

It’s time. 

Notes:

* - Tested or diagnosed through clinical means.
** - Tested free of CV19 twice over 2 weeks, after diagnosed as positive. 
>> Dropped down to be consistent with the US news media, though this estimate is 2 years old and does not include unregistered persons.  The 2020 census should clear this up.

Crunching The New Numbers: It is Shocking! Does quarantine cause infection?

My apologies for not keeping up with this.  My computer died and it took a little while to get a new set up tweaked in.  Plus it looked like things were going to open, then they didn’t. 

In statistics recently released in New York City, 66% of new cases came from homes that were following the quarantine.  In Florida and Georgie, 2 states that bucked the trend and opened up a few weeks ago, both saw a 10-12 percent reduction in new cases.  Reports now 3 months after the fact, prove that the Wisconsin Primary Election held in February (Super Tuesday), did not cause any spike in the numbers.

 

But this is about real numbers.  So let’s see what we have learned in the last month.

 

3 studies that I know about, one in Germany, Fresno California, and New York City  New York, sampled a few thousand people who were asymptomatic for the virus.  These were not antibody studies.  These were simply people that were tested for CoVid-19 (CV19) out of hand.  In New York, it was Pregnant Women who came in to give birth.  In Fresno, It was people asking to be tested for sanity or work-related testing of healthy people.  In Germany, they tested 80% of a town. 

The results, though a small sample size (2-8 thousand tests in each case), showed 15% of the subjects were positive, though asymptomatic.  If that holds, Oregon can expect that some 632,700 people are currently or have been infected.  In the United States, 15% of 328.1 Million People are 49.22 Million people. I know this number is wrong because the infection rate n some areas are far lower than 15%. The less densely populated areas will have a lower rate because infections travel slower. 

The Numbers are still encouraging

US Population (est.): 329,000,000 >>(See Notes)
+Estimated exposed to the Virus: 262.475M
(Estimated Percent of National Population exposed 79.8%)
*Confirmed Cases: 1,450,136 (Increase of 218,515 over April 17^th numbers)
Total Deaths:           86,607 (an increase of 50.700 over April 17^th numbers)
**Total Recovered: 253,279
Death Rate: 0.552%, Based on the estimated total exposed. (5.97% unadjusted numbers)

So what about Oregon?

Oregon Population (est.): 4,180,000
+Estimated exposed/recovered to the Virus: 629,699
(Estimated Percent of State Population 15.06%)
*Confirmed Cases: 3,479 (Increase of 1,328 over April 17^th numbers)
Total Deaths:           137 (an increase of 73 over April 17^th numbers)
**Total Recovered: Unreported by Oregon
Death Rate: 0.083%, Based on the estimated total exposed. (3.9% unadjusted numbers, that is 33% below the national average))

What does this mean?

Of all states, Oregon is probably one of the safest.  Even despite the initial push of numbers. Against the national average, we are far better off than other places.  So why are we still forcing businesses to close? The unintended consequences can be just as bad as the disease.

The point of the sequester was to keep from overwhelming the hospitals.  It was never about saving lives.  Sadly these things must run their course.  It is natural.  It is what happens.  Keeping schools closed next year will keep parents home.  They will not be able to afford to go back to work.  Because of global food production decreases, because of the lockdown. The UN World FoodProgram estimates 265 million people will starve directly due to reduced food production because of CV19.  In comparison, less than 0.114% of that number have died from CV19 globally.  As of May 17^th, 2020: 303,825 people have died from CV19.  Again the cure is worse than the disease.

So what’s next?

Well, we can either keep going, destroy the local economy or we can start learning to live with this pandemic just like every other one we have experienced.  Not the people who want to keep us under control have one tool.  That is fear.  It is all about “saving lives” is the big lie.  It was always about giving us time to prepare for the inevitable wave that is coming.  According to local news, we have months of PPE available for hospitals.  Ventilators,  that may do more harm than good,  as well as treatment options.  Hydrocholoquine has proven 90% effective.  There are other immune suppression methods used to great success in California.  I know that sounds weird, but it boils down to the idea that CV19 can cause a cascading immune response, and that is what kills the at-risk and weaker patients.

We NEED a Vaccine!

Some of the folks who tell you to “shelter in place,” say we need to develop a vaccine to develop “herd immunity.” As wonderful as that sounds, there has never been a vaccine developed for any corona type virus.  SARS CoV, the original SARS virus was discovered in 2002.  Since that time millions have been dumped into a vaccine and curative research.  Some treatments have come out of that, but not a vaccine. So should we look for one?  Sure we may get lucky.  But to count on it is insanity. 

On the flip side, if 15% of the population has already been exposed and fought off the disease,  we are that much closer to herd immunity.  Herd Immunity is calculated by computer models.  There are estimates of between 80% to 15% of the population would have had to been exposed to CV19, either fought it off or be inoculated, for us as a species to reach herd immunity.  A little known fact about “herd immunity” is that does not mean the virus disappears and nobody dies.  It means that enough people can fight it off to reduce the death rate. 

Again a vaccine should be researched.  And those that want it should take it.  Those that don’t shouldn’t be forced (yes I am libertarian). But the only way to guarantee an eventual return to normal life is for us to get out, and get exposed.   It is not that I want people to die, I am just pointing out we are not actually saving any lives by doing what we are doing.  In the long run, we will kill more people.  More of them children according to the United Nations.

Go outside, get some sun.  Say hello to people.  You are more likely to die from a fall in your bathroom that in contracting a virus,l you may already have fought off.  Freedom is not without risk, but lockdown is just prison with Netflix or Disney+ and a comfortable couch.

Notes:

* - Tested or diagnosed through clinical means.
** - Tested free of CV19 twice over 2 weeks, after diagnosed as positive.
+ - Based on 15% of the population having asymptomatic response. See German, California, and New York Studies.   The math works out that each person exposes about 181 other people.  The previous calculation used 110 other people being exposed. 
>> Dropped down to be consistent with the US news media, though this estimate is 2 years old and does not include unregistered persons.  The 2020 census should clear this up.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.