Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 30, 2020

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm

Everyone now on the face of the earth (and anywhere else) will die sometime. One of the totally irrational responses to the current Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a meme that lists the number of annual deaths from different causes, mostly politically motivated, and the current death number from the coronavirus. The above chart shows data from the Nationa Vital Statistics System as compiled by the Nationa Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as shown in an article entitled, "Mortality in the United States 2018." Here are some actual tabulated figures from another article from the same source entitled, "Deaths and Mortality."

Data are for the U.S.

• Number of deaths: 2,813,503
• Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population
• Life expectancy: 78.6 years
• Infant Mortality rate: 5.79 deaths per 1,000 live births

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2017, tables 1, 3, 13 pdf icon[PDF – 2 MB]
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2017, table B pdf icon[PDF – 2 MB]

Bear in mind that every death has a cause so even if a person lives to be over 100 years old, ultimately there is a cause of death. 

Where I live and because of my age, I am surrounded by death.  I regularly learn about the death of a friend or acquaintance. By its nature, the death of any one individual is disruptive. For example, although both my parents died more than 11 years ago, I am still working through issues caused, in part, by their deaths.

The real question here is what do all these statistics about the causes of death have to do with a pandemic? The answer is basically nothing. Let's suppose we could eliminate one entire cause of death. The effect might be to increase the life expectancy of the population but it would not change the overall death rate it would only move the numbers of deaths into other cause categories. If people didn't die from cancer they would still die from something else.

So why is there such a big impact of a new cause of death such as the coronavirus? The partial answer is in the mortality tables or actuarial life tables used by insurance companies to set your life insurance rates. I have referred to this type of table before. Here is a link to the one from the United States Social Security Administration. Looking at this table, at my age, almost 40,000 people out of the 100,000 born in the same year that I was born, have now died. This is translated into a death probability of .035963 and my current life expectancy is about 11.18 years.

Do these large numbers and generalized percentages have anything to do with the pandemic? Well, yes, if the number of people who die is large enough to affect the overall death rate.

But the real problem is the vast disruption in our entire society not just any relative numbers of deaths from any specific cause. Arguing that more people die from heart disease than from a virus is irrelevant. At least some of the people who die from the virus would have ultimately died from heart disease but they didn't. They died from the virus. The real question is personal. Do you want to die now from the coronavirus or do you want to some time to die of some other cause? Your reaction to this question determines your attitude to the efforts being taken to reduce the impact of the present pandemic. This isn't a political issue. The effects of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic are not the results of anyone's political persuasion but the severity of the effects for any individual are determined by that individual's actions. Can you absolutely prevent the disease from killing you? No. But you can reduce the risk and you may survive. Pointing out that there are other causes of death does not reduce the possibility that you personally will die from the coronavirus. Arguing that we shouldn't do anything about a virulent infectious disease just because there are other more serious causes of death is simply irrational and unintelligent.

You might note that in the United States billions of dollars are spent every year attempting to reduce the effect of each of the leading causes of death.