CORONAVIRUS: Getting On With Our Lives

This coronavirus pandemic sure is confusing, isn’t it? Some states are opening back up; some are closing down. Some studies say that the virus dies in sunlight and is dispersed by fresh air; others say we should all stay indoors where it’s “safe.” Lost Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has decreed that all citizens of his fair city will now wear face masks 100% of the time...indoors, outdoors, awake, sleeping...doesn’t matter. If you breathe, you need to be wearing a face mask in L.A. (Stagecoach robbers and Lone Rangers are excluded.)

There is soooooo much conflicting information out there…what the hell are we supposed to think?!

Some people really, truly believe that all of the isolation and social-distancing that we've done so far really, truly “tamped-down” the virus and inhibited its spread and deadliness. Those same worrywarts predicted that once society started opening back up, we’d see a huge spike in the number of COVID19 cases and deaths. But so far this has not happened.  (Perhaps it is too early to tell.)

For all of the drastic restrictions that have been imposed on Los Angelenos, their COVID19 mortality rate is 0.043%. We get that by dividing the total number of deaths in the city (1,712) by their population (4,000,000).

On the other hand, Sweden, which did very little in the way of mandatory isolating and distancing, has a mortality rate of 0.034% (3,529 deaths divided by 10,330,000 people.

The obvious question is: Why is Sweden’s mortality rate lower than that of Los Angeles? The answer is complicated because comparing the two places is not “apples to apples.” But still, the difference is striking, don’t you think? The next question one must then ask is: Do the mandatory social-distancing, isolation and various lockdowns actually work? Or more specifically, what would the mortality rate in L.A. be if the city did what Sweden did?

Here in Florida, for the last week the state has been enjoying limited openings of beaches, restaurants and other businesses (tragically, no topless bars yet). So far, we have not seen a spike in new cases. The numbers are up and down from day to day, the curve is pretty level and it’s hard to discern any definite trend. Deaths? We saw an increase of 48 today for a total of 1,827 statewide. Our COVID19 mortality rate is 0.009%.

So the “experts” were mostly wrong. COVID19 was not the dreadful, horrible killer that was going to run rampant through society, leaving millions of people dead like the Spanish Flu did a hundred years ago. Instead, nowhere near. Yes, COVID19 is particularly threatening to certain segments of the population, and people in those at-risk categories would do well to lay low for a while and limit their exposure to other people who may be infected but asymptomatic.

As more and more people get out-and-about and start socializing again, we certainly will see an increase in the number of new cases. That’s inevitable, and nobody but an idiot news reporter should be surprised. Not to worry. What we’ll have to watch is the number of people needing hospitalization, and of course the number of people who actually die from coronavirus, not just those who die with it.

In the meantime, let’s all get on with our lives.