Nothing To Fear....

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

FDR

As I write this, we are entering Week 2 of Ohio’s “Stay at Home” order. Schools in Ohio are entering their third week of a three-week closure. Given the modeling offered by Ohio officials, I expect that an extension to this closure will be announced sometime this week.

I will admit that I am a bit of a Facebook addict. Not only do I usually enjoy the posts of many of my Facebook friends, the presence of many state and local agencies make it a valuable source for the latest information.

Notice that I mentioned that I usually enjoy posts of my friends. Many of them, bless their hearts, are obsessed with political posts. Most of these posts simply trash the perceived enemies of their political hero. Some of these posts are so wildly ridiculous that a sane person would seek to verify accuracy before associating his or her name with anything so bizarre. This is not the case. As long as it fits their political allegiance, they post them anyway. It is almost supernatural how seemingly normal people have been rendered incapable of rational thought.  

The latest obsession of these folks deals with the “fear being spread by the mainstream media.” In the past few days, many of these have posted Facebook memes about the number of recoveries from COVID-19, and how the reviled mainstream media won’t report these numbers. One post even suggested that these recovery numbers are not being reported because it makes the president look ineffective in dealing with the coronavirus crisis.

Okay, we all know who you are voting for in November. Still, if you had been paying attention all along, you would already know that 80% of people who are or become infected with COVID-19 will recover by staying home while suffering from mild to moderate flu-like symptoms. Thus, recovery numbers are going to be huge and will continue to grow. Some of those hospitalized will also recover, adding to these numbers.

Then why the “fear-mongering” by health officials? It is to “frighten” enough people into staying home in order to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Hospitals in some parts of this country are already overwhelmed. The likelihood of this occurring at hospitals in more areas of our nation is very likely. State government is doing its best to build up hospital capacity in preparation for a surge in novel coronavirus patients that is expected even with the current social distancing measures currently in place. Keep in mind, modeling conservatively predicts that well over 40% of Americans will contract this coronavirus. While all of this social distancing delays the inevitable, it buys time for hospitals. This keeps them from being overrun and unable to care for the large number of COVID-19 patients.

So, what is there to fear? Italy’s COVID-19 death rate is 7.2%. That is not good. In the United States, this death rate will likely be lower. The number of fatalities in our nation will be significant. It is over 2,200 this morning. We have almost 124,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Tests are in short supply and take a week or more to receive results. The number of infected is obviously higher, and health officials have been telling us this for weeks.

 Are people frightened? Yes, many are. In this case, staying home and reducing the speed at which this virus spreads is a positive thing. If “fear-mongering” keeps you home, hospitals and hospital personnel are thankful!