COVID-19 was sold to us as the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish
Flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide and caused
675,000 deaths in the United States. On
March 16, 2020, the Imperial College London (ICL) predicted
that an unmitigated epidemic would cause 2.2 million deaths in the US
alone. Adding, even in the best-case
scenario, with extreme mitigation and treatment, 1.1 to 1.2 million Americans would
still die. Gabriel
Leung, chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said
that COVID-19 could infect 60 percent of the world’s population and kill 1 in
10 of those infected -- killing 50 million people worldwide.
These dire warnings inevitably snowballed and created widespread fear
and pandemonium. Panicked shoppers
stocked up toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other goods creating a supply
shortage. The media predictably jumped
on the bandwagon with their nonstop media coverage. Governors and mayors, in turn, responded by enacting
extreme quarantine and social distancing policies effectively shutting down the
US economy. This same scenario played
out all over the globe causing the greatest viral panic the world has ever seen. However, it didn’t take long for the initial
projected deaths to become revised:
On March 29, 2020, NIAID director and White House advisor Dr. Anthony
Fauci lowered initial estimates
to between 100,000 and 200,000 American deaths.
On April 8, 2020, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) revised
their estimates
from 94,000 deaths to 60,400 deaths, a decline of 26 percent.
April 9, 2020, Dr. Fauci said the final
toll currently looked more like 60,000 deaths rather than 100,000 to
200,000 deaths. Incidentally, an article
co-authored by Dr. Fauci had predicted that COVID-19 “may ultimately be more
akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.”
In less than a month the estimates were revised from 2 million to 60,000
deaths. Currently, there are 21,993
deaths in the US as a result of COVID-19.
No doubt that number will increase before this is over, but it has yet to
compare with a bad flu season. For instance,
according to the CDC 61,000 Americans died during the 2017/2018 flu
season. There were no mass
quarantines, stay-at-home orders, or economic shutdowns when that happened just
two years ago.
According to Dr. Fauci, the models were revised down because social
distancing has been effective, but how can we know that for sure? There’s a certain degree of plausible
deniability involved no matter the outcome. If the initial estimates were correct then the
experts can say “See, we told you so.” And
if the initial estimates were wrong the experts can say “See, we saved
you!” In other words, even if they’re
wrong, they’re still right.
It appears unlikely that even with extreme social distancing measures
the initial estimates could be lowered so drastically within such a short
period of time. Especially considering
many of the models did factor in some degree of social distancing. Regardless, how do we account for countries
like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Iceland, and Sweden among others? These countries are dealing with COVID-19
without taking the same extreme social distancing measures, and they haven’t
experienced exorbitant death tolls as a result.
Taiwan, for example, currently has had 388
cases of COVID-19 and only 6 deaths.
There are several things we must reevaluate in light of current events.
The first is the blind faith we put in
computer models. Models are not crystal
balls, they can’t predict the future with any degree certainty. They are designed to persuade and change
behavior, and that is exactly what they have done. Second, we should reevaluate the faith we put
in the “experts”. Experts are good at
what they do, but it also makes them prone to tunnel vision. They see problems and solutions only as it
relates to their field of expertise. The experts do not take into consideration
the social or economic ramifications of their recommendations, and are often
unable to relate to life outside their own narrow field of specialization. Expert advice must be balanced with the real
world and the people that live in it.
Finally, we need to reevaluate if these drastic measures were warranted
in the first place. We’ve had pandemics
before, such as SARS in 2003 and H1N1 in 2008, but we’ve never taken these kinds
of actions before. Not even during the
Spanish Flu were such actions taken. Yes,
they had quarantines and partial economic shutdowns due to labor shortages, but
not a nation-wide economic shutdown like we are experiencing now. The actions we are taking are unprecedented
and we don’t fully know the extent, especially to the economy.
The economy is our life-blood. There is never a good reason to shut
down the entire economy because if we lose the economy we lose everything. If that happens a pandemic may be the least of
our problems. A depression would cause
untold misery, unemployment, and food shortages. In addition, if the economy goes so goes our
healthcare system, leaving us in a worse position if we need to battle another
pandemic. As President
Trump said, "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem
itself."
At the time of this writing, there are approximately 113,902 deaths globally
as a result of COVID-19. While a single
death is still a tragedy, it must also be put into perspective. Seasonal flu kills an estimated
291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year. The H1N1
pandemic killed 151,700 to 575,400 people globally. In comparison, COVID-19 is shaping up to be
the worst pandemic that never happened. However, the consequences of our actions
will have long-lasting repercussions. It
may take us years if not decades to fully recover from it.
