Timothy Birdnow

The great Victor Davis Hansen weighs in on the Wuhan plague.

From the article:

When we put all these diverse criteria together, we are left only with likely parameters, not known facts, other than the conventional wisdom that the vast majority of Americans will likely recover from the infection in the coming days or weeks. So far, we seem to believe that less than four in 1,000 will likely die of those infected younger than age 40. Likewise, coronavirus lethality rates are weighed by much higher deaths of those above age 65, but especially above 80 (nearly 15 percent)—and not just to advanced age alone, but comorbidity from heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. For the general public, when we talk about supposed degrees of lethality, and then apply those numbers to the population under 40 or 50, the optimistic absolutes that 99 percent will likely recover are seen as more relevant than scary comparisons that far, far more—likely 99.8 percent—will survive the flu. Is that a legitimate concern? Bees and wasps kill about 10 times more people per year than do spiders. Does that mean we should fear walking among pollenating hives (our 40-acre almond farm has about 80 of them), at least far more so than fixing pipes under the house in the spider-infested dark? Or, not at all—given that spiders kill six Americans per year and bees and wasps ten times more so, adding up to about 60 fatalities out of some 2.9 million yearly deaths in the U.S.? The point is one of perception: to what degree do we inadvertently panic the population and wreck the economy by driving home the fact that a possible 98 percent to 99 percent survival rate still means thousands more dead than a conjectured 99.8 percent survival rate?

With new draconian measures of containment, we are entering the realm of cost-benefit analyses, given that for every drastic action there is an equally radical reaction—calibrated by everything from physical and mental health issues to economic, financial, security, legal, and political upheavals. Whether we like it or not, the current sweeping measures to curb the virus come at a huge cost—and the tab isn’t just financial or economic, as is sometimes alleged, by both advocates and critics of quarantines, cancellations, and radical social distancing. It involves health issues as well.

If the country goes into a serious recession or even depression; if trillions of dollars more of investment and liquidity continue to be wiped out while businesses crash and jobs are lost; if millions of unemployed cut back on their scheduled health care; if they increase their use of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, and get less exercise and suffer depression holed up in their homes or must borrow or scramble to find daycare for their school-age children; if they even contemplate suicide—then the human toll spikes in concrete terms of life and death. In the long term, arming ourselves against the virus could be as serious as the virus itself, though to suggest that in these dark days of plague is heresy.

In 1976, also an election year, the country overreacted to the threat of the swine flu, when the press and "experts” warned of a likely return of a 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that this time around could kill "500,000 Americans” and infect "50 million to 60 million.” By early 1977, Americans were panicked and ready for mass inoculations of a rushed and unproven vaccination. Some 45 million were vaccinated; many had adverse, but limited, reactions, and about 450 reportedly ended up with crippling Guillain-Barré syndrome. The current popular creed that critical vaccinations are dangerous grew in part from the well-publicized 1976 mishap—with unfortunate, and in some cases lethal, consequences in convincing citizens not to get their necessary flu shots. In the end, there were about 200 cases and one death due to the great swine flu pandemic. I remember as a student at Stanford waiting in a campus line for the vaccination, then driving home for spring break and ending up in bed with a bad reaction to the shot.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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