"It will blow your head clean off. You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"
Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, to a suspect.
You won't die from COVID, unless you are already old and sick. Well, you might die. It could happen, but probably not.
People are counting on that.
We would expect about 53,000 Americans to die every week. We are getting about 63,000 deaths.
Something is going on, and it is COVID. There are some Americans who don't believe it is COVID, because they think the numbers are fudged or exaggerated to make Trump look bad. That idea circulates in conservative cable and social media. That thought is actually more frightening news than thinking it is COVID because that would mean there is some other, completely unexplained reason why the death rate is up about 10,000 a week--1,300 a day--over the trend line. People can question exactly why, but deaths themselves are significant events that get recorded, and the deaths are happening. COVID is what makes sense.
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| Click: CDC data and chart site |
[The falloff on this chart for the last three weeks is not cause for optimism. Data trickles in over three weeks and the drop-,off is an artifact of that data lag. In reality, we are in a plateau. Excess deaths are down from April, but remain 10,000 above the trend line.]
Trump is right when he said at a rally that young people have great immune systems and as of now, they only very rarely appear to die from the disease. He is wrong in saying it affects almost nobody; it affects old people and sick people and they die from it. There are 50 million American seniors, a big population at risk.
In daily life I witness a big disparity in COVID wariness and behavior. Some of it is partisan, which has been widely reported, Democrats being more careful than Republicans. Trump signals that masks are wimpy and useless and a Democratic nanny state thing. People who take leadership from him--lots of Republicans--act accordingly.
Young people of unknown political bent are also more likely to be mask scofflaws, in my observation. Masks and social distancing are a bother. They diminish their quality of life, and--for what?--a low risk, low consequence event for most of them. So they maybe get a little sick, then they get well and, presumably, are then immune. Not so bad. According to this COVID-death-risk calculator, a healthy young person has a vanishingly small chance of dying from the disease. https://calculator.covid-age.com
However, a healthy 70-year-old man who gets the disease calculates to have a 0.7% chance of dying from it. At 85, a woman with a heart condition and a body mass index of 30 would have an 11% chance of hospitalization and a 4% chance of dying.
Are you feeling lucky?
Every observation and experience I have from a 30 year career working primarily with older people is that most 60 year olds become 70; most but not all 70-year-olds become 80 and have some health problems; and that most 80-year-olds die before they are 90. Moreover, in that process people's quality of life generally diminishes. The 70-year-old who golfs and fishes and travels and thoroughly enjoys retirement becomes the 80-year-old with back pain, arthritis, or a heart condition but who is doing OK, with problems, and a 90-year-old who is happy to be alive but who has significant health problems.
It would be a perfectly rational decision for a 70-year-old to decide, with cold hard calculation, to recognize that he or she has one sole chance to be 70, and is living it right now, and that he or she is on an inevitable glide path toward being poorer health and death. Therefore, the opportunity cost of staying sheltered and masked and avoiding the social interaction and travel and activities that make that 70th year a good one, might simply be too high. One lost year is 10% of one's 70's, and when they are gone they are gone. Better to enjoy life while you can. The bird in the hand is too good and fleeting to waste on a 0.7% of dying.
An 85 year old might well calculate that, at best, he or she has 5 more OK years, and the notion of staying cooped up, avoiding grandchildren--those precious grandchildren who grow up so fast--avoiding dear friends, and generally blowing that year in isolation, might well calculate that the now-very-precious 85th year is too wonderful to waste against a 4% chance of dying.
Donald Trump gets poor reviews in polls for his handling of the COVID pandemic. About two-thirdsof voters say to pollsters that Trump should have done more. Yet a hard-nosed calculation of risks could easily lead people to behave, and perhaps in the back of their minds, actually agree with Trump. He downplays the virus and tells people to go back to pre-COVID normal. People do risky things. They want what they want. Gather ye rosebuds. The moving finger writes.
Voters may not be telling the polls how they really feel. They want to live their lives. Donald Trump has a good feel for what a lot of people think, but avoid saying aloud to others. Donald Trump is telling them to roll the dice and come out a winner. The cure is worse than the disease.
Besides, they feel lucky.
6 comments:
You Got the Bug-- Not Covid-19, it’s TDS!
If we want to be fully diligent and careful, we should not leave our house. Remember, masks only reduce the risk, they don't eliminate it. If you do leave your house, then your answer is "yes, I feel lucky." Congrats, you are officially a risk taker! Me too!
The reason 99% of us feel lucky is because that is science. Science died on the cross for our sins (or am I mixing metaphors?) Yes, that most precious political word, "science"-- science tells us we are statistically guaranteed at 98.2% to be one of the lucky ones in this "pandemic". Is there a different name I can use, something other than "pandemic" since almost none of us first-hand know a single pandemic victim, much less one who landed in the hospital, much less in the grave? Yet, every reader knows someone, probably multiple someones, who died of cancer or heart disease. We all know someone who has life-shortening diabetes or morbid obesity. Why don't we live in fear of cancer, heart disease or diabetes more than we live in fear of the bug?
Politics, that's why! Even for Democrats, yes especially Democrats and Covid-19, politics trumps science. Cancer and diabetes are big political nothings, no one can get elected, nor can any party surpass the other, nor can you smear or ridicule your neighbors about exposing themselves to carcinogens or sugars. We have political superiority in trashing those without masks, but not a word of derision for those who don't exercise or who eat themselves into obesity, diabetes and heart disease, or who pay no attention to carcinogens in their consumer behavior. California has carcinogen labelling, but consumer studies show few people factor it in to a single thing they buy or eat. In fact, "fat shaming" is not allowed even though “they” overburden our health care system. It is political taboo to say in the supermarket line-- "excuse me, I can't help but to notice your cart is full of bad choices that will land you in the hospital, orphan your kids and burden our whole society. Maybe you don’t care about you, but what about me?” Yet, will you shame (even under your breath) those in the same supermarket line who have their mask on wrong? You probably will, some of us feel free to actually confront them in the checkout line. We will write a social media post about the "stupid idiot I saw today without a mask who will wreck our health care system". But for those who unflatten the curve far more, we won’t mutter a word about those whose behaviors make them sick. It’s not PC.
But trashing people over Covid-19? That is PC encouraged. Yes, a bug with moderate public health risk compared to cancer, diabetes, obesity, unprotected sex, or sedentary life-shortening lifestyles, that bug is one of the biggest political splashes of our lifetime because we have license to viciously ridicule each other, blue against red, maskless Trump losers (or so we assume), for partisan political release. In no other country I know of is Covid-19 so politically polarizing. In Brazil and other countries they attack their leaders over the bug. In Germany, they publicly protest the lock downs. But only in the USA is it citizens of one party verbally savaging citizens of the other party.
There is a reason for that. It's a different bug. It’s not about luck. It's TDS. Would you test positive for Trump Derangement Syndrome?
Habit, life style and social norms all impact risk and reward. Think about flying, learning to ride a bike, hunting in the backcountry, smoking, drinking alcohol, unprotected sex and following doctors advice. There's risk involved. In fact some of the risk factors are exactly what may attract you. Now imagine you're an insurance company insuring loss, accident, injury and death. Here we factor in the mathematics and statistics of large numbers to establish the cost set for premiums based on norms and past practice. Writing in exemptions for acts of God, suicide, sky diving etc. insurance companies underwrite their risk and adjust their expectations for a profitable year. If you're a hunter to accept the risks associated with handling firearms and backcountry survival. If you're a pilot you accept the risks associated with operating aircraft. If you don't drink and smoke like your peers, you may find yourself socially isolated. Social isolation maybe a condition worse than a hangover or the long-term consequences of smoking. If you're a Trump supporter you flaunt the norms of the nanny state and go without a mask to the rally where you sign a liability disclaimer should you contract COVID19. It is a bold action of defiance and makes you feel as strong as you were in high school when you suited up to go head-to-head against your rival high school. Cold clear thinking logic to consider the risk is not a concern. To be embraced and accepted by your peers, in this case, Trump supporters - is the reward. I do not see this level of participation in Biden supporters. In the case of Biden supporters I see the clear thinking the of actuary examining the risk but not reveling in the anticipated reward. Instead I see the fasciation with polls that their thinking is leading the polls. Just like 2016.
Maybe it's of no consequence but it seems to me that a communicable disease is not in the same category as bad eating. I'm thinking of the disruption to the food chain when a quarter of the workers in a packing plant get sick and when some start dying, the others stay home. Or the health care workers who die unnecessarily while caring for someone who caught the virus from their grandchild.
No, the odds of any one person becoming ill are low, but the wider effects to the community necessitate a community response.
It's only political because Regressives, for whom community is an abstract, find it expedient to do so.
To my fellow commenters: What do ya'll think about the illusion of rationalism? When I was 21 I raced my Suzuki GS750 down US 50 out of Tahoe at 140 MPH - at night - knowing full well that young men on fast bikes have a very high mortality rate. As Billy Joel sang "the good die young".
You see a lot of cigarette smokers in Singapore; cool-looking young men swaggering like John Wayne. All cigarette packages in S'pore have large, grotesque pictures of cancerous lungs, throats and mouths. I had lunch one day with the late Daniel Wang, the former Singapore Health Director who is was known for cleaning up the street-food vendors with things like handwashing - to great effect (and banning chewing gum). He was also responsible for forcing to cigarette companies to put such gross pictures on their packages. He sadly admitted that those warnings had little measurable effect. Young people feel invincible and more often than not test the odds.
Everyone seems fixated on the dying part of COVID - which for me is less of a problem since as Peter points out, it's simply a matter a when and how for all of us. What's unattractive to me is the possibility of being a COVID "long-hauler" - getting it and being permanently physically or mentally debilitated. But what are the odds of that? We don't have numbers because nobody is tracking it. So I mostly stay low, wear a mask, avoid crowded places and events. It's a small inconvenience for a year or so of "missing out". I don't feel the need to correct anyone for not taking precautions, just like I don't tell young male friends of mine to sell their bikes. Most of them have lived through motorcycle ownership. A few have not.
It comes down to this "If you want to get sick and maybe die that's your right, but you don't have the right to take others who don't want to go with you"
A numbers game? Until you watch your loved one languish, locked up in a ward, suffocating, isolated from family , if lucky, looking through a window waving goodbye to you, the person who brought the virus home to them.
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