BETTER SAFE, THAN SORRY

As children, we all remember our parents trying to protect us through admonitions of what might happen if we don’t adhere to their danger warnings. Don’t touch the hot stove! Look both ways, before crossing the street! Don’t talk to strangers! Put on your seat belt! Ride your bike with traffic, not against it! Don’t put anything into electrical sockets!

As we grew up we made decisions to ignore these and other warnings, sometimes to our detriment. But that was part of becoming an adult. If we made bad decisions we paid the consequence of those decisions. Hopefully, we learned valuable lessons that benefited us in our journey to adulthood. As adults, we make decisions every day that balance risk versus reward. Every time you drive you are taking a risk that you or someone else will make poor choices that could result in an accident and/or death. You assess those risks and in most cases elect to leave the house and go where you have decided to go. In that process, you may speed, text or be distracted while driving. Again, you have made decisions that increase your chances of an accident but you consciously or unconsciously have decided that the risk/reward benefit is in your favor.

Can you eliminate risk from your life? Yes, but it would be a pretty miserable existence. You would be living in a constant state of fear that something or someone would harm you. Psychiatrists have a word for this: Agoraphobia; a fear of an actual or anticipated situation, such as using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line or being in a crowd, or being outside the home alone.

The other side of taking no risk is recklessness, being a daredevil or foolhardy. Probably the archetype for this type of person was Evil Kenevil, who would jump his motorcycle over cars, trucks, and even the Grand Canyon (for which the government refused him permission). He has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most broken bones in a lifetime.

So where do you fall in this spectrum?

The first criteria is whether the risk you take affects only you, or do you have to consider your family or society in general. The risk decision is far easier if you only have to consider yourself. Will I benefit or be harmed from taking a risk? That is why younger people, especially young men, race cars, join the military or take excessive financial risks. As you grow older and have more responsibilities especially if you have a family, then the risk profile becomes a lot more complex. Decisions on taking risks that may affect your family are far easier to make than risks to society in general.

Today, the most obvious example of societal risk is going out in public with a communicable disease. We have had plagues and pandemics in the past that have killed millions of people. Examples included the Bubonic plague, Spanish flu, Ebola, Swine flu, small pox, polio, measles, rabies, malaria, yellow fever, AIDS, Zika virus and COVID-19. It’s one thing when mosquitoes, dogs or rats are trying to kill us but another when diseases are spread from one human to another. It would appear that if you have or may have a communicable disease that you have a societal obligation to not spread it. As to COVID, your actions may be to self isolate, wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands with antibacterial soap, and not to touch your face.

The key to making a good decision is information. The risks of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 are as follows:

Those with underlying medical conditions like cancer, kidney disease, COPD, heart conditions, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, Sickle cell and weakened immune systems have odds that are closer to the old than the young. According to the CDC, 94% of COVID-19 deaths also had contributing medical conditions. It is obvious from this data that we know who we should be protecting from this terrible disease, the old and those with underlying medical conditions.

The world response to the COVID-19 virus was to shut down society with government mandated lock downs and rules for masks and social distancing. This is the first time we as a society have opted to protect the healthy instead of isolating the sick or those at greater risk. People are told to stay in their houses, wear masks in public, social distance, work from home, don’t send your kids to school, and avoid church. There is no consideration for increases in suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, child abuse, depression, and alienation of people from one another.

We are all told to wear masks. But try to find out if the mask you are buying is effective. The CDC has yet to certify which company makes a mask that will protect you from catching COVID-19 with a high degree of certainty. Sciencedaily.com reports that the efficiency of a new three-layer surgical mask worn properly can protect you 65% of the time, however that efficiency drops to 25% if used more than once, which may be worse than not wearing one at all.

The following excerpt from a New York Times article by Sheila Kaplan on 12/16/20 describes it best:

“More than 100,000 varieties of face masks are currently for sale. They come in silk, cotton and synthetics; with filters and without; over-the-head and over-the-ears. They have sparkles and sunflowers; friendly greetings and insults; cartoon characters and teeny reindeer. What they don’t have is a label that shows how well they block infectious particles, an omission that has frustrated public health officials during the coronavirus pandemic. Those experts note that there is a big range in the effectiveness of various designs, and some barely filter out particles at all. “The most fundamental, basic question is, What is the safest mask and how do I assure that I have that, and my family members and children have that?” said Fran Phillips, who stepped down in August from her post as deputy health secretary of Maryland. “It’s so startling that we are here in this moment and we don’t have that information.”….

In my opinion, we should not have shut down the economy after we learned that COVID-19 was deadly to less then 1% of the population and most of those people were in an age group that we could have protected. Sweden opted for keeping their economy open, however they did not sufficiently protect the elderly, but even with that error their death rate per 100,000 is 10 in the 0-64 age group and 383 in the 65-85 group. The Great Barrington Declaration which was penned by three of the top epidemiologist in the world and concurred by 13,084 public health professionals and 39,545 medical doctors called for an end to the lock downs with protections for the vulnerable.

The way forward from here would be to have the State Governors pledge to end the lock downs, school closures, and state of emergencies if there was broad compliance with government approved masks and social distancing when ever possible. Special accommodations for those individuals older than 65 and/ or those with underlying medical conditions, like home delivered groceries, special restaurant hours, pharmacy deliveries, should be enacted. Prioritize the vaccination of the 54 million people over 65 and those with medical conditions. Once that is accomplished, remove the mask and social distancing requirement and let society return to normal. COVID-19 will still be out there but its impact will resemble the seasonal flu. Death from disease is nothing new and can’t be eliminated no matter what draconian measures government takes under the mantra of “no deaths on my watch” When given the facts, most adults are capable of rational decisions. One of the great tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic is the fear and lack of information that has been spread among the public which has led us to allow governments to increase their power and limit our freedoms. It is time for us to return to: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.