100,000 Deaths from COVID-19!

Last Tuesday as rumors of new guidelines asking everyone to wear facemasks spread, I decided to watch the Task Force briefing. There was no such guidance at that time, but I was impressed by how the reporters never seem to listen to the speakers. Are they distracted by the opportunity to ask their prepared questions and ability to get airtime? I spent a good deal of the time telling the TV, “They just said that!”

In any case the first question was about one of the graphs projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, even with full mitigation. This was a modeling result and was in no way guaranteed. No one asked about confidence in the model or how it could change. They just focused on the numbers, because they are scary numbers. The primary reason for the question appeared to be to get the president to say the number, so they could pin it on him. He handed it off to Dr. Birx to show the chart again and repeat the projection.

The next day those scary numbers were all over the news. CBS said, "The White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 Americans will die from coronavirus if ‘full mitigation’ measures are taken.” NBC called it a “dire warning” and only used the upper limit of the projection. ABC chimed in with, “Grim Trump, doctors say prepare for potential 100K to 240K deaths.” That story emphasized the president “abruptly” changing his mind when given new information – I wonder what ABC does when they get new information. 

I cite the mainstream media here, because so many editorials like to pick only on “cable news” when criticizing incomplete or slanted coverage.

Now let’s do what neither the media nor the task force made an effort to do, put it in perspective.

First, are all these incremental deaths? – Probably not. Some of the people who die from the virus would likely have died anyway, especially those in nursing homes. In addition, with so many people staying home, traffic deaths and other accidental deaths may be avoided, but all deaths will be recorded as virus-related and extraordinary.

Second, America is a land of big numbers. The government just passed a law to spend a huge amount, over $2 trillion! Each year Americans drive over 3 trillion miles, personal and commercial, and 2.8 million babies are born. It wasn’t too long ago we were stressing over news like this, “more than 130 people in the United States die of an opioid overdose every day.” And today: “School closures due to coronavirus have impacted at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools and affected at least 55.1 million students.” The CDC considers over 107 million American adults obese. In America, charities, activists and politicians wanting to raise money, awareness or votes easily find such big numbers to elicit support. 

The CDC estimates 24,000 to 62,000 deaths from the flu this last season, and that’s with a vaccine available. In 2018, the number was 55,672 from flu and pneumonia. If we had 100,000 deaths from coronavirus in 2018 (the last year with complete numbers), it would have ranked seventh among leading causes of death just ahead of Diabetes. 

In fact the total number of deaths in the US from all causes was 2,813,503. On average over 234,000 people die every month from other causes. It’s all counted in big numbers.

Relative to some of these numbers, 100,000 across the entire population is not that large; but taken by itself it can be scary. The task force uses it without perspective to motivate people, to shock them into doing the right thing. The media piles on by using it without perspective to attract viewers and to sell newspapers.

We should be able to cooperate in the containment effort without fear and be able to stay calm knowing the media agenda is to upset us enough to ensure we buy more of what they are selling. But that's not what's happening.

Don’t Be a Sucker

Last week I received an email where the subject line included the words “immune system.” There was something in the message about clicking on a link to unsubscribe. It was obviously either a promotion for a fake product or a phishing attempt. In any case, I sent it to the spam folder without opening it. 

Even if there were no link attached, it would have suffered the same fate. Anytime you see words like “boosting your immune system” or “promotes healing,” put your hand over your wallet and run away! It’s surprising how many people still don’t get it.

Marketing of these products has ramped up as the threat of the coronavirus pandemic hit the US. In fact according to this website, the airwaves and Internet are already overrun with bogus products and fake cures. “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have sent warning letters to seven companies allegedly selling unapproved products that may violate federal law by making deceptive or scientifically unsupported claims about their ability to treat coronavirus (COVID-19).” 

These companies and others are pushing products, running the gamut from teas to essential oils to colloidal silver and other supplements, as being able to treat or prevent the disease. By law all such substances must state in their advertisements that they have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Most do, but some, like the ones in the article, get into trouble when they fail to comply. 

In any case, there are not yet any treatments for coronavirus nor is there a vaccine to prevent it. Even without the disclaimer, it should be clear that these are scams. Here, for example, is what Mayo Clinic says about colloidal silver. “Colloidal silver isn't considered safe or effective for any of the health claims manufacturers make.” It doesn’t work for coronavirus or any other condition and may be harmful.

It takes almost no effort for critical thinkers to find flaws with the products and supposed health services listed. The truth should be common knowledge by now. (See any of my many previous entries debunking the benefits of dietary supplements, starting here.) References in the above article to a “naturopathic doctor” or to renegade chiropractors falsely claiming some power against the virus should raise red flags. 

But instead panic buying of supplements, or what this site refers to as “immune products,” in the wake of the coronavirus scare is leading to supply shortages and higher prices.

The expression “There’s a sucker born every minute” is often attributed to P.T. Barnum, but there is no evidence that he ever said it. It may have been said by any number of other people and is commonly heard and understood in the 21^st century.

I have no respect for these companies pushing fake remedies. They all should be sent to the spam mailbox. The ones that fail to post the disclaimer deserve their problems with the government. The ones that post the disclaimer but still imply some medicinal power for their products are no better than modern day snake-oil salesmen looking for the next sucker. Those who still believe in what NPR calls the Vitamin C myth or rely on other supplements, essential oils, reiki or other alternative medicine for their health needs may as well be handing their money to a witchdoctor for all the good it will do them.

Wise up. Don’t be a sucker.

Added Note: It is helpful to remember we are all in this together, except apparently for the news media, doing all they can to highlight the negative aspects of the disease and the efforts to combat it to promote fear and anxiety.

Coronavirus Fears

The fears, more so than the virus, are leading people to do strange things. The toilet paper and bottled water hoarding is just one example. I stopped by the grocery store today and it was packed at 1:30 in the afternoon. Schools announced they would shut down for 2 weeks to disinfect, and apparently what you do when the schools are closed to keep the kids from infecting each other is take them to a crowded grocery store instead.

And what the schools are disinfecting is a mystery, since there have been no reported cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in this or any of the surrounding counties. But I guess the schools will be as germ-free as they have ever been.

I don’t think the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is doing anyone any favors. He is undoubtedly very knowledgeable on the subject, but his bedside manner leaves something to be desired. With the country in a panic he told Congress, “things will get worse than they are right now. ”

That is the direct truth, perhaps a little too direct. It is understandable from a purely clinical point of view that diseases spread, especially in a population without immunity, but words like that don’t do anything to get people to calm down. They have the opposite effect (to the great delight of the news media). 

So here is another way to think about it. America is very likely better at dealing with such a problem than China. The first case in China was traced to November 17 of last year.

By February 29, we were seeing headlines like this from NPR: “As New Coronavirus Cases Slow In China, Factories Start Reopening.” They were still having some economic problems, but the future seemed brighter.

By March 12 Reuters was reporting: “The Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, reported just five new cases on Friday, the second day in a row the tally has been less than 10, while no locally transmitted infections were reported in the rest of the country.” Less than four months after the initial outbreak they seemed to be getting a handle on the problem.

That should be encouraging for the rest of us. Though it will likely get worse as Dr. Fauci stated, the first case of coronavirus was already detected in the US just about two months ago. “On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever.”

Now extrapolation can be a little dangerous, and no one can guarantee that we will be out of the woods less than two months from now. But judging from progression of the disease in China and subsequently in Italy, it seems like a decent assumption. Whether it is or not remains to be seen, but taking that point of view is certainly more comforting (and realistic) than listening to the evening news and then hauling the kids off to the store to buy more toilet paper. 

Coronavirus Benefits (?)

I thought perhaps one of the few possible benefits of this coronavirus (COVID-19) scare is that people would begin washing their hands more often. Apparently I was wrong. Instead people are hoarding hand sanitizers, leading to price gouging on the Internet and bare shelves at brick-and-mortar locations. Time reports: “Sales of hand sanitizers in the U.S. were up 73% in the four weeks ending Feb. 22 compared to the same period a year ago.”

Further along in this and several other articles we are reminded that washing with soap and water is superior. “If you’re not near a sink, hand sanitizer will do. But keep in mind that it doesn’t kill all germs, the CDC says.”

I reminded readers about this last fall in a piece about how the media insists on presenting old news as the latest discovery. Here is an excerpt from that entry.

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Here is an example of well-known information being presented as a new revelation: a study hitting the Internet and the airways recently revealed that “Washing your hands under running water may be a better way to stop the spread of infections than using a hand sanitizer.” The hand sanitizer can be nearly as effective as washing hands for removing flu viruses, provided both are done properly. It just takes longer.

In laboratory experiments “it took about 30 seconds for the sanitizer to eliminate all the flu virus in the saline samples, but more than 4 minutes for the sanitizer to get rid of flu in the mucus samples.” From the lab tests they moved to a more real-life situation by putting mucus directly on people’s fingertips. When it was given time to dry (for 40 minutes), the hand sanitizer killed the flu virus within 30 seconds. But in a more realistic situation where the mucus was still moist, it took about 4 minutes of rubbing for the flu virus to be completely eliminated.

Proper hand washing removed traces of the virus in both cases in about 30 seconds, whether the participants used soap or not. The benefit is not from the soap, but from the rubbing under running water. 

No one is likely to rub the hand sanitizer for 4 minutes or alternatively to let their hands dry after sneezing for 40 minutes, but neither do many people spend half a minute scrubbing under running water. When a sink is not available the alcohol is a good option. 

That’s what we know today, but we had substantially the same information 10 years ago. From Live Science in October 2009: “Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is the most effective way to remove germs. But when you're on the go, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are tremendously effective in preventing the spread of the seasonal flu.” They gave 20 seconds for washing and 15 for the sanitizer, so the latest study just worked a little on the details. It wasn’t really news.

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Relative to the recent hoarding, CBS News made a good point a few years ago when they asked: “Does hand sanitizer give people a false sense of security?”

Furthermore, earlier this year Fox Business reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to Purell about claims on their website pages and social media platforms, claims that were either totally erroneous or not supported by evidence.

Others fear that germs accumulating on bar soap negates the benefits or washing and believe that antibacterial soap is the better choice. Both these assumptions are faulty as I explained in “Thinking About Soap” in September 2016.

The question remains: Will Americans use the latest coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity to learn and grow, taking rational precautions and not flying into a panic, or will they continue to react to each intentionally scary news story as if the world is ending? Time will tell.

Flashback - Letting the Media Scare Us Over and Over

[The news and entertainment cycles are so rapid that nostalgia no longer requires a long memory. What was scary or hot just a few years ago has moved on to be replaced by the latest craze, panic or breaking story. It was little more than twenty years ago that the world was stressing over Y2K – what would happen when the computers thought the year was 1900? Since then people have worried about frankenfish, the genetically engineered salmon raised on farms, and the rejection of net neutrality leading to a crisis that never happened, along with many other manufactured fears. 

Every Christmas parents stress about getting access to the “hot new” toy so their kids wouldn’t be disappointed, but where are all the Tickle Me Elmo dolls today? 

Likewise the worldwide epidemics come and go. Just a couple of years ago it was Ebola coming from Africa. Today it’s Coronavirus from China. And don't forget SARS.

One such flash-in-the-pan concern was over a product vilified by some celebrity chef as pink slime, as I wrote back in 2012.]

Now we get the case of “pink slime,” a derogatory term referring to, and gathering support against, the use of beef scraps to supplement ground beef sold in stores, a practice that has been going on for years with no ill effects. Why do people stoop to such name-calling? Either they have no valid arguments or they are trying to catch us up in an emotional reaction to promote their particular cause (or as this news article calls it, a crusade). Who thinks about the jobs lost? Why are people who speak out against waste in other areas silent on this issue? Why would Kroger and the other grocery chains buckle under the pressure of these crusades against a product that is not harmful, less expensive and less fatty, that they have been selling for the last 20 years? This hurts many and helps no one.

The uproar about the coloring ingredient in Coke and Pepsi that I addressed on March 19, [2012] had a similar dynamic - get people all riled up to rally behind a cause or complaint based on poor or sometimes even deceptive evidence. The problem is that with social media it is now far easier to start a crusade or get people fired up about an issue using an emotional appeal. Before you know it governments are banning products or ingredients or the companies that sell them are back-pedaling due to the bad press on Facebook or Twitter. Most consumers have little formal science education in such areas as human biology or experimental design, but they loudly express their “concerns” based on unreliable information on the Internet. The masses are howling, the ringleaders are name calling, and we are moving closer and closer to a kind of mob rule where we end up paying the extra costs, enduring the unintended consequences, and having our choices limited.

In this fast moving society one subject does not stay in the news long, so the following week, "concerns" arose over the use of BPA in food packaging.  At this rate we could be banning or otherwise losing access to 50 products a year based not on science but on public outcry!

Along similar lines a different article tells about how old photos were intentionally used by the press to influence public perception in the Florida shooting case that has sparked so many protests. The article suggests that this type of manipulation by selective presentation of pictures and videos has become common practice in the media. Another article sheds additional doubt on the accuracy and completeness of some news reports.

So my question is, when are we going to stop being influenced, frightened and manipulated, and start thinking for ourselves? One way leads to reasonable outcomes, the other to the consequences of chaotic, knee-jerk reactions to each new manufactured crisis or irresponsible crusade.