This has been a crazy week with people protesting the stay-at-home orders so they can get haircuts and coloring and of course a President who had a thought experiment about drinking Lysol or bringing UV Light into the lungs. (Just so you know neither would work even if possible but that is for another time). There are governors trying to open their states up, some following careful recommendation, others like Brian Kemp of Georgia who can't seem to understand disease spread.
But what is amazing is how many people defend and spread all kinds of nonsense and fight hard against reality. Here are a few things I am hearing that really we need to stop.
1. People who say they had Covid-19 last fall: Not likely at all for many reasons. While I don't trust the Chinese government to accurate information what we do know is that the first death recorded was December 10, 2019 at a hospital in Wuhan, China. We know that because someone broke protocol and told the world and was punished for it. If you think you had this disease which seems to have come from Wuhan in late November before then I would have to ask is the world is wrong. Did it originate in your area? Also where are the hospitalizations and deaths that would have been noticed? This is a highly contagious disease and has about a 1-1.5% fatality rate. While I assume that there were cases before the January 24th date in Washington state, I can't believe that we had people walking around all over the country before we had even heard of it from China.
2. The Flu kills more people than Covid-19 and we don't isolate for that. There current numbers show that yes, Covid-19 has killed fewer people than the average year of flu. But it has only been for 3 months and we have had massive social distancing to slow the spread. By next week we will blow past the average of flu deaths. This is more virulent than the flu, it kills more people who get it, it has no medicines to mitigate it, and no vaccine.
3. Only people who are near death already will die. I have heard this from elected officials and from social media. That some how being young, healthy and active you will be fine. While most people who die from this virus are old or have complications that is not universal. Anyone can die from this, anyone, and even if you recover, there are lasting issues that may make you more vulnerable to death in the future. This goes along with the idea that elderly people are willing to die for the future of their children. I know a lot of old people, they aren't looking to die of this horrible disease.
4. The cure is worse than the disease. This has become the mantra of many who want to re-open the states. The idea being that the crashing economy and or continued stimulus money will in the long run kill more people than the virus. The math here is that those that die are a necessary sacrifice to save the financial stability of the country. This argument is difficult coming from so many who claim to be Pro-life. One of the arguments against abortion is that a woman's life and economic well-being does not over-ride the life of the fetus. Funny how those people are now saying people must die for their own well-being.
5. The death toll is elevated because all deaths now are considered Covid-19. This is an amazing conspiracy theory because it suggests that doctors all over the country are violating the law by lying on death certificates. Somehow this is supposed to be designed to make the President look bad. One person even argued that no one had died of a heart attack since February. (I know of someone who did so......) When I asked for proof I was told to go look for it myself.
These are but a few of the nonsense that keeps being spread, from government officials, social media posts and repeated in the right wing noise machine. They are dangerous because they destroy trust in the very agencies that are giving us the information that we need. They aren't perfect but they aren't part of some deep state attack on the President. Surviving this will not be easy, our country will suffer,
many people will suffer in personal ways and a lot of our lives will change. But we can work together. Listen to experts, read beyond headlines, investigate claims, and continue to talk to people you trust. Stay safe and stay home, even if your governor can't seem to understand what you know.
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