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Suddenly everyone became an epidemiologist |
In the immortal words of Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry Callahan) The Dead Pool (1988):
“Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.” I will add ...and most of them stink.
The vast majority of people that I interact with on social media and in my life in general can't tell the difference between a Golgi body and a goal post. But I can. I've spent 40 years of my life immersed in academia, studying, then teaching science and biology, a field that requires some knowledge of all three of the major groupings of Science, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Even though I’ve retired from teaching and formal academics over 13 years ago, my interest in science and biology has not waned. So if this sounds like I have superior knowledge of things biological compared to the average layman, maybe I do. Read the rest with that in mind, and yes I have opinions too.
Opinions on COVID19 depend on ones point of view. As a septuagenarian with advanced Multiple Myeloma and other co-morbidities, an infection with SARS-CoV-2, for me, is possibly a death sentence. Myeloma already is, thats just a matter of time. To be sure, facing ones own mortality has a way of altering one’s views short term, because the longer term is more uncertain. So you’ll pardon me if I disavow complete objectivity, but I’ll try to be as objective as possible.
We are six months into our COVID19 Pandemic here in North America and some predictions have come and are coming true. First off, many people predicted a major Pandemic...eventually, as you can see here.
Some predictions about the future were totally off. Like this one in 2015: "Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century."
Here is what British science writer, Matt Ridley said in a recent interview about that prediction.....
“......We went into this pandemic hysterically terrified of climate change. What climate change actually means is that by the 2060s and 2070s, the average temperature of the world will be a couple of degrees warmer. That is essentially all we are saying. How did we manage to get to the point where we put that way above all other scares in importance, and neglected the pandemic threat? The World Health Organization (WHO) said in 2015 that the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century is climate change. The WHO is meant to keep us safe from pandemics. This suggests to me that in 2015, the WHO was not doing its day job. We are now seeing the consequences.”
This is what Canadian Public Health thought about the WHO pronouncement in October 2019, just a few months before the Pandemic.
If that doesn't make you wonder about WHO and Canadian Public Health, you are NOT paying attention.
The prediction that a Pandemic was coming is not particularly prescient. Pandemics occur regularly, but this one was treated differently. The virus spread from China to Italy and the rest of Europe at jet-like speed before it arrived in North America. Then came the government enforced lockdowns. Those were not widely predicted. The early affected countries seemed to set the tone for the lockdowns. The first lockdown occurred in China, this was followed by parts of Italy.
Our governments in Canada and the US were unbelievably unprepared, almost surprised by the speed of events. One would have thought that the first SARS outbreak in 2003 would be a teaching tool for this one. Canada's largest city, my home town was ground zero for SARS CoV-1 back then. Lessons (like this one) were written by the main actors during that event. Did our governments pay attention to these? Nope. Look at these snippets from that event in Toronto 17 years before the COVID Pandemic:
“Evidence suggests that SCoV is transmitted via contact and/or droplets ….. and that the use of any mask (surgical or N95) significantly decreases the risk of infection…”
“…epidemiological evidence suggests that transmission does not occur prior to the onset of symptoms or after symptom resolution…” “….underscoring the importance of a rapid, accurate diagnostic test.”
“Atypical presentations of the disease have been described also complicating the diagnosis…”
“….Interestingly, the disease has been rare in children and if present appears to be milder…”
“…More frequent is a mild variant of the disease that includes mild respiratory symptoms with fever….”
“…Advanced age is the most important risk factor for death with patients older than 60 years having a case fatality rate of 45 percent…”
“The infectious agent was spread by respiratory droplets in the great majority of cases, and some patients were more infectious than others….”
I would say that all of the above and more was useful information for this novel Coronavirus, but similar to one that was already studied. Did they use the information? Did they take precautions? Was there any thinking going on by public health officials? None that could be discerned.
In fact our illustrious Prime Minister was mostly concerned with anti-Chinese racism in early February as case counts began in Ontario and B.C. Young JustinT had barely finished chastising Canadians for the racial stereotyping of the Chinese, when the Chinese virus arrived in his own house carried by his wife. The Chinese Communist Party, which young JustinT “admired,” deserves much of the blame for the entire debacle that followed.
Despite intelligence and plenty of evidence to the contrary, our governments did a piss-poor job of preparing for a Pandemic and compounded that by failing to inform the population at the start.
The stable genius in the United States at first denied the seriousness of COVID19, even though he was advised of the opposite. Apparently, he didn't want to start a panic, but was OK with a disaster.
The general population knew better. News media were reporting shortages of toilet paper and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. People were preparing. The WHO finally declared the Pandemic on March 11, 2020, the next day my wife and I forayed out on one last shopping binge looking for masks, gloves, and wipes, but only found gloves. We bought more toilet paper, and canned foods all the while thinking that we may have to hunker down for a few weeks. Schools were just closing for the March break and we thought they may have to shut for several weeks following. We did not imagine 6 months.
The next day sports leagues began cancelling games. Everything seemed very spontaneous and without direction, very ad-hoc and ultimately surreal.
Back in late February and early March, Washington State had outbreaks in a retirement homes - that should have been a big red flag for public health everywhere. But of course it was mostly ignored.
Here is what happened in another Washington event: “....an outbreak occurred following attendance of a symptomatic index case at a regular weekly rehearsal on 10 March of the Skagit Valley Chorale (SVC). After that rehearsal, 53 members of the SVC among 61 in attendance were confirmed or strongly suspected to have contracted COVID-19 and two died. Transmission by the airborne route is likely.” See this link. This above was a demonstration of just how contagious the virus was from a sick contagious individual, and how it was spread, possibly as an aerosol (that is disputed) but likely by droplets when he coughed and sneezed in a closed space (that is not disputed). Again, that was mostly ignored.
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| Skagit Valley Chorale outbreak |
The news from Europe, especially Italy was very disturbing.
I could only imagine hastily called meetings going on here at home in workplaces, businesses, in local and regional government offices about next steps. It began to dawn on many of us that this might take a while and to be safe, some changes must be made.
Our government leaders were caught with their pants and skirts down, and suddenly realized that our medical facilities were finite and largely unprepared. In fact they were unprepared in normal times with long wait times, and for many who needed urgent care, this was about to become a disaster.
We were soon inundated with TV and radio ads from government urging everyone to wash their hands often and stay home so as not to overwhelm the already inadequate healthcare system. We were all urged to “flatten the curve” for the sake of the health care system. Hospitals postponed “elective” surgeries and physicians discovered that video and telephone “consults” worked. Worsening outcomes for cancer, cardiac patients and everybody on a waitlist were about to become collateral damage.
Turns out that the hand washing advisories were probably over done. The evidence now shows that touching contaminated surfaces (fomites) was a MINOR method of transmission. The virus is transmitted by droplets primarily, as you would expect with a respiratory virus, and of course the government and public health officials poo-pooed wearing masks (even though it was recommended with SARS-1) but made a very big deal of washing hands.
In fact our chief public health people actually discouraged masks at first, then reversed that advice. The entire mask issue became a debacle as I've already discussed here.
Businesses of all sorts produced radio and TV commercials that were incredibly alike and eerily resembled this cartoon.
News stories from the New York City region served to terrify because public health there could not keep up with the surge in cases and deaths.
By this time everyone that could, went online, and suddenly everyone became an epidemiologist.
Many of us stuck at home with literally no where to go, discovered “Zoom.” That did not help and in many ways things became worse. There was also a sudden uptick in the sharing of idiotic memes and jokes by email. That lasted for weeks.
Traffic jams had disappeared overnight. Businesses and entertainment had shut down. There was no where to go, and it became eerily quiet especially in urban areas without traffic noise and air travel. Delivery vans (delivering food etc.) soon became the major traffic in many neighbourhoods.
Soon the conspiracists came out online. The most idiotic ones called what was happening a “PLANdemic” that was planned and started by the likes of Bill Gates or George Soros, or some scheming media and government leaders to subjugate humanity. Or, the whole thing is a hoax - never mind all the deaths in China, Italy, New York etc. Or, the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab in Wuhan. Or, COVID19 is no worse than the flu (it isn't) Many unsubstantiated claims were circulated. Most were hilarious to me anyway, but the conspiracists were serious.
Some folks even doubted the nature of the disease. Was it really a virus or was COVID caused by “5G networks?” Such a ridiculous idea it is just unworthy of further comment.
All the talk about protecting the health care system seemed to work because it was never overwhelmed here, unlike Italy or New York City or other places in the States later on.
What quickly became obvious was that the health care system failed to protect the elderly in long term care across the country. Local outbreaks raged through those operations and its there that the majority of COVID deaths occurred in the early days of the Canadian outbreak. Things were so bad in some elder-care homes, that the military was called in to rescue survivors. It was the proverbial “shit-show” in these long term care facilities, a black mark against government controlled healthcare and a disaster for many families across Canada.
Then came the drug therapy advocates with their own conspiracy theories. Based on the unfounded claims of the idiot in the White House and some random medical mavens who claimed this drug or that miraculously cured COVID. None were shown to be really effective let alone a cure, and only a few showed any real clinical effects that could be proven in a double blind study. So far the only drugs that have been proven to have any effect are steroids like dexamethasone and an antiviral remdesovir.
Then came the contrarians, claiming the lockdowns were unnecessary (probably), or we should have followed the Swedes (maybe), or that masks are totally useless or even dangerous (unlikely), or the Pandemic is over (also unlikely), lets all go back to the way things were (not going to happen).
People with higher paying jobs could work from home during a lockdown. People with lower paying jobs generally cannot if they have jobs at all. Many had lost their jobs and income because of the government’s lockdown over reaction. Almost as penance government began shovelling money almost indiscriminately out to the people negatively affected. This added enormous debt to governments everywhere, an effect that will certainly outlast the effects of the virus.
Early on some folks predicted social unrest as a result of the forced lockdown. Of course no one predicted what form the social unrest would take though it was easy to predict who would be affected.
The pandemic became the perfect storm for the resurgence of the civil rights movement as a result of a few very unfortunate police actions. The continued presence of apparently racist police officers combined with smouldering frustration in Black and Indigenous communities after years of endless discrimination, sparked worldwide demonstrations, riots, and vandalism. The latter two have probably caused considerable resentment in the broader community, as I’ll point out later. Unfortunately this gave undeserved prominence to groups like ANTIFA and “Black Lives Matter” that advocated completely irrational demands such as defunding the police. Libertarians would be happier if police were de-tasked of certain functions, but that's a longer story.
Throughout most of the very warm summer (in these parts) businesses were allowed to reopen in stages. Case counts dropped, deaths dropped, many people, especially the younger population became complacent. Strangely, even as the Pandemic seemed to wane several governments instituted mask mandates, finally acknowledging how the virus was primarily spread. Perhaps public health officials were anticipating and attempting to ward off a second wave, we’ll see.
In August, most sports leagues restarted competition, but without audiences, just on TV - very weird (especially the cardboard cutouts in the stands), but at least it offered many an escape and live entertainment. Each of the Leagues pandered to the current civil rights unrest, by highlighting the dubious importance of the political group “Black Lives Matter” and so-called racial justice. Did the fans really care? We got a hint when the first NFL game (in Missouri) was held in front of a small physically distanced crowd that booed when the players at pregame linked arms in a salute to “racial unity.”
I suspect there will be much resentment at the political shenanigans of the sports leagues. How that will manifest itself later on is anyone’s guess. But pandering to intersectionality and racial unity does not mix with sports entertainment IMHO.
The mask mandates just triggered more civil unrest, and more so-called “expert” opinions (see top) and discussions on their effectiveness especially online.
As case numbers ticked up in early September schools reopened with much parental consternation and considerable variation across the country.
We’re 6 months in, and winter is coming. Will there be a second wave? No doubt, its just a matter of how big. Its well known that schools drive pandemics, will it happen this time?
