Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 31, 2020



I drove past our local Costco yesterday and saw the line of people waiting to get into the store. I understand that the lines have been longer but this one went down the side of the building. It was apparent that many of the people coming to the store were not aware of or prepared for the line. Fortunately, as I have written before, we are not dependent on buying anything in particular right now or for some time into the future.

Besides panic buying, one of the other major impacts of the Coronavirus COVID-19 is the proliferation of false or misleading news stories. I read a good example of a "serious" news report today that started out with a false premise and then relied on that false statement for the balance of the article. My quote comes from the KSL.com article entitled, "Coronavirus Mailbag: How long should we expect to be social distancing?"
Editor’s note: These answers are based on interviews and information current as of the time of publication. Please be aware that new information may be discovered by health experts after publication. We’re working to keep this information as up-to-date as possible. 
SALT LAKE CITY — We’re starting to get a better picture of COVID-19 in Utah. As of Monday, 806 state residents or visitors had contracted the novel coronavirus and four residents had died from it, according to the Utah Department of Health. 
Other statistics released by state officials Monday indicate the disease has affected younger Utahns the most, but older Utahns have suffered heavier complications from it. About 87% of Utah’s confirmed cases, so far, involve people under the age of 65, including 42% of cases involving people between the ages of 25 and 44 and 15% involving people 24 years old or younger, Gov. Gary Herbert said during a press conference Monday.
On its face, this appears to be a serious attempt at answering some basic questions about the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on Utah. Unfortunately, the statement made in the first paragraph of the article is both false and misleading.  The false statement is "As of Monday, 806 state residents or visitors had contracted the novel coronavirus and four residents had died from it, according to the Utah Department of Health."

If this statement does not appear to you to be false, then you are not reading enough about the pandemic to understand what is actually going on. Why is this statement false? Simply put, out of an approximate population of 3.161 million people, as of March 30, 2020, only 16,003 tests had been conducted. The statistics in the second paragraph of the article are based on a vanishingly small percentage of the population that has been tested.

The interesting thing about this issue is that it is general across the United States. The only way any kind of conclusions can be drawn about how the coronavirus is affecting the national population is to massively increase testing, not just for sick people, but for everyone. Additionally, there are some questions about people who have recovered from the virus. See "New antibody tests can detect whether people have had the coronavirus after they recover, but scientists still aren't sure whether people can get reinfected." from Business Insider.

What is even more unfortunate is that many people, as I observed yesterday in a very short trip to get gas in my car and mail some letters, are ignoring both the distancing issue and the stay at home issues. The parking lots at the stores and the Mall were filled and so far, here in Utah, the stay at home mandates have been ineffective. This could partially be the result of contradictory and false information being disseminated by government officials around the country.

The key to all of this seems to be to do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family. Read as many varied accounts from different news services rather than listening to your "favorite" one. Take reasonable and consistent measures to avoid catching the virus from others and following the instructions of the most reliable resources: doctors and hospitals and health agencies not politicians and online talk show hosts. Here is a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article entitled, "How to Protect Yourself."

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