8 Things I think are True

I'm going to come right out and admit that there's a possibility none of these are actually true. In fact, there's a probable case that at least a couple of these are demonstrably false- I think that's the point of my sharing it.

I, like everybody, have been struggling with percolating thoughts about COVID for a while. I've been listening to varying points of view and reading articles and studying, yes, studying the CDC and JH charts daily, looking for patterns of deep meaning in the test and death numbers. And I've come to some conclusions about this whole thing that I'd like to share. If you disagree, please tell me why. I'd like to become more educated about this whole thing. So, here are things I think are true.

1. For America, and most of the world, the worst is over: I said back in mid-march that I thought we'd be over it in a couple of weeks. I'll admit that was over-optimistic, but when I look at the majority of world hot-spots, including Italy, Spain, and New York, it looks like we've passed the top of the curve. Here's a look at the logarithmic death rate for Spain:

You can see that the chart has almost completely flat-lined at around April 7. Italy has a similar chart, and NYC is headed there, as of about a week ago. This is a good sign, and telling for a couple of reasons, which leads me to:

2. Lockdowns don't help as much as we think: I think that the reason for the graph above has less to do with a strenuous lockdown, and more to do with the pool of vulnerable souls. Spain began its strenuous lockdown on March 15. On the surface, one would think it must have worked, given the curve starts to flatten about 2 weeks later. But check out this graph:

This is a relatively similar curve, though the dates are different and it's a little bumpier. This is the death curve for Sweden, one of the only European countries that had zero lockdown. In Spain, thousands of people were arrested for going out in public, while Sweden kept their schools and churches open. As sad as it is to think about, we all know that COVID is most threatening to the elderly and those with severe complications. I think sequestering our most vulnerable was a very, very smart thing to do as a precaution, but I'm not convinced that it translated to less death. I think this curve would have flatlined regardless, because over time there are less and less of the most vulnerable percentage.

3. The threat of a "second wave" similar to Spanish flu is unfounded: I've seen this meme on social media, and I don't get it.

The message seems to be, "If we think it's bad now, it's only going to get worse in a few months." There's a couple of problems with this. First, if you look at the months on this timeline, you can see that the "first wave" of Spanish flu happened in the summer, and the "second wave" in the winter. It's much more likely that if there's a resurgence of COVID in a couple of months (read: July or August) that it will be much milder with the summer temperatures. The real question will be next fall and winter, and how COVID-20 interacts with our seasonal flu. It might be bad, it might be very, very bad, or it might be a statistical average. There's really no way to know.

4. A vaccine might not be a solution: COVID is definitely not the flu, despite what some naysayers may say (or have said). However, it's not Measles either. The rate of mutation is much faster (around 25x per year) than Measles, but about half that of seasonal flu. This means a vaccine might not have to be the gamble that flu vaccines are every year, where we're never actually sure if it's going to even help, let alone work, but it also might not be the finish line so many pundits are hoping for. Forensic analysis here is going to be key. Which leads me to:

5. Infection rates might already be sky-high: Check this out:

The most intriguing line to me is that 21% of New York residents tested positive for antibodies. If 1/5 of NYC (around 2 million people) already had the disease, it pulls their inflated death numbers down below 1%, which is a very good thing. The interesting thing is the rest of the state at around 3 percent. That seems small, but that's still around 350K people. To put that in perspective, it would account for a 25% increase in the total number of positive cases in the US. And that 3 percent is more indicitave of the rest of the country. In fact, it may be much, much higher.

To put this in perspective, these numbers indicate that instead of 1.1 million positive cases in the US, we may be closer to around 15 million. That puts the national mortality rate down to .4% which is much closer to a catastrophic seasonal flu. Good news.

6. It's quite possible that COVID strains are different on either coast: I've been wondering about this for quite some time. California is not really doing anything different than, say New Jersey, and yet we've had a much easier time with COVID, even though we may have the same 5 or 6 percent infection rate. I think it's at least plausible that, while the Pacific side of America was hit with a strain directly from China (remember a billion years ago when Washington was the big hot-spot?) the Atlantic side has a COVID strain that mutated through Europe. It's also possible this strain is more lethal. This is all pure speculation on my part, but it would explain some things. The big question then becomes whether antibodies from one strain grants any immunity to another.

7. Wearing a mask in public is not very helpful: I'll concede that, if you are symptomatic you should wear a mask, lest you sneeze on me. This holds true whether you have COVID, the flu, or any other contagious disease. The issue of asymptomatic transmission has led to mandated mask wearing in public, which IMHO is not really worth it, for several reasons. The public square is not a sterile environment, we're constantly touching and breathing all over everything. If someone puts on a mask the moment they walk into a grocery store, but they sneezed on their hand 15 minutes ago, it's useless. Furthermore, most people aren't wearing airtight N95s anyway. Particulates are constantly escaping and entering while they do their shopping. It seems to me more psychological than anything. If you wash your hands and avoid touching your face, the only way to catch a communicable disease is for someone to cough into your mouth. Which leads me to my last thought about COVID:

8. I'm more scared of setting precedents than anything: I get that, especially noting the above, the concept of "social distancing" is a really good idea during flu season. However, I truly believe that when all is said and done we are going to conclude that COVID was not an especially deadly disease, just a very virulent and mysterious one. What has been unprecedented has been our universal reaction to it as a species. Never in the history of humanity has a healthy populace quarantined itself for the sake of a vulnerable portion of its population. What happens next time? What if the next superbug comes after children, rather than the elderly? What if the symptoms are imperceptable until it's too late? Will this kind of lockdown, suspension of public events, and overall destruction of our way of life become the standard reaction? My gut tells me that it can't be. We can't do this regularly as a society. My hope is we look forensically at our decisions, keep the good, and eliminate the bad. But of all my COVID thoughts, I'm less optimistic about this than anything.