Why I Stopped Reading National Geographic and the COVID-19 Pandemic

When I was a lot younger than I am now, I was a great fan of the National Geographic Magazine and even went to Washington, D.C. to sign up personally at National Geographic Society headquarters. Some years ago, the magazine ran an article about Salt Lake City, Utah. Of all the things they could have written about, the National Geographic writer chose to talk about polygamy. There were two photos in the article; one showed a lovely polygamist family in a large beautiful home with children all dressed in matching clothes and the other showed a "typical Mormon" family sitting in their weed overgrown, and very messy backyard with very overweight people apparently overeating with a table full of food. Granted, polygamy is an issue here in Utah and in other places around the world. Historically, my own ancestral family members were polygamists. But the issue of polygamy is so low on the concerns here in Utah as to be almost non-existent. Recently, the Utah State Legislature reduced the penalty for polygamy from a criminal action to about on par with a traffic ticket. See "Polygamy bill passes the Utah State Legislature."

My opinion of National Geographic made a major shift with that one article. I suddenly began to see that the "primitive" societies and other depictions made by the magazine were just as biased and unrealistic as the article that offended me. I subsequently got rid of almost all of my huge collection of back issues and stopped regularly reading the magazine. This experience with many others has sensitized me to writing that is biased and exploitive. I have also focused on how much "propaganda" passes for news and commentary. By the way, propaganda is defined as information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. I am not advocating cutting off reading anything you personally disagree with. If you do that, you are creating your own propaganda. But in my case, I stopped viewing the National Geographic as an unbiased source of information and put it into the same category as most of the other publications I regularly read. 

Now, what does this have to do with the virus COVID-19. Quite a bit actually. I read extensively, probably 20 to 30 or more different magazines and news reporting entities on a regular basis. I also spend a very short time reviewing a little bit of my Facebook stream. What I am seeing in this pandemic era is an extraordinary increase in propaganda much of which is just plain false. Unfortunately, the sources for this propaganda are almost universal from the heads of our national government, political parties, popular news online, magazines, and almost every other possible venue. No, I am not going to give examples of "fake news." The stream of such drivel is so constant and so pervasive as to basically create an alternative reality where everything from UFOs to flat earth theories are considered to be mainstream acceptable topics for serious consideration. 

How do we avoid being "sucked in" by propaganda and false news? The best way I know is to read an expanded and extensive variety of news sources. Next, it is important to identify and listen to those people and news sources that do not have any particular political or cultural bias. If you are listening to or reading the same online commentator or watching the same news station or company every day, you are being desensitized to fake news and propaganda. 

Of course, all this is easier said than done. But what do you do when even the statistics lie? The best decision is to examine your own best self-interest. If the world is buying toilet paper, do you actually need to fill your garage? If you are old and vulnerable, like me, do you listen to people who say that social distancing is a bad idea and counter to your "freedom," or do you take reasonable measures to protect yourself from disease and infection? Do you listen to people who say that a disease that has, at the time of this post, killed hundreds of thousands of people is really a political hoax and no worse than the flu? 

You can believe what you want to believe but you should take the time to think through the consequences of buying into an idea that will put you personally in danger or be detrimental to your family. 

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: April 4, 2020

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

The count on the worldwide number of Coronavirus COVID-19 just went over a million a few days ago so I thought more about numbers than usual. The graph above was from the day before the number went over a million. This particular website has hundreds of graphs of every kind and possible description but it also has a significant section on the virus. Here in the United States, the number of new cases daily is increasing with a similar curve. Here is the graph for the U.S. for the same day as the one above.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

One interesting fact that is dramatically shown by the graph of the total cases in the U.S. is that the increase in the infections did not appear un about the 16th of March, only a few days ago and the number of new cases is rising every day.

Here is a graph of the world total from April 4th. You will note that the graph looks identical except for the increased numbers.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

Although I have not gotten sick with the virus (yet), because of my age and past experience with lung problems including, but not limited to, asthma, I am definitely in the risk category and so I am staying strictly inside except for short solitary excursions and avoid almost all contact with the outside world. The remaining contact is from about, at least, six feet or more. Fortunately, our weather has been mostly beautiful and we have been well stocked with the essentials from long before the virus became a problem. 

Until those curves shown above start taking a decided turn for more level, we are in for a long haul.  I am still hearing people say that there is nothing to worry about and that the whole pandemic thing will be over by the end of the month or whatever. I am not a statistician nor am I involved in the medical side of the disease but I am an attorney with years of trial experience looking at "evidence." I would hate to be asked to argue a case for an early end to this particular pandemic. I would also hate to be an expert witness trying to predict how many deaths might eventually occur from the COVID-19 virus and its variants. It is hard to see the spacing between the dots in these graphs. Here is another graph from the same website that shows the increase in the number of cases each day.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

You might wonder why the numbers seem to go up for a while and then go down and then jump up. These are not really changes in the number of new instances of the disease, they are changes in the reporting. For example, as of the writing of this post, the State of California is in a testing crisis. Here is a quote from an article in the Atlantic, entitled "Private Labs Are Fueling a New Coronavirus Testing Crisis, Backlogs at private laboratories have ballooned, making it difficult to treat suffering patients and contain the pandemic."

Though the problem is national in scope, California is its known epicenter. Over the past week, the most populous state in the union—where the country’s first case of community transmission was identified, in late February—has managed to complete an average of only 2,136 tests each day, far fewer than other similarly populous states, according to our tracking data. Yet California also reports that more than 57,400 people have pending test results. Tens of thousands of Californians have been swabbed for the virus, but their samples have not yet been examined in a lab.

What will happen to the Daily New Cases number when the California test results catch up with the backlog if they ever do? This is what is called a "boxcar effect" with the numbers jumping and falling due to reporting failure. 

As long as the number of new cases continues to increase, the effects of the virus will continue to get worse.

 

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."

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.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 23, 2020

This isn't the Coronavirus. It is a random virus pathogen. 

The developments in the last three or four days regarding the spreading Coronavirus COVID-19 have been extraordinary. For example, on March 20, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed the following figures:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

The number from today's report from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center shows the U.S. with 35,224 cases and 471 deaths, more than double the amount being reported by the CDC in less than three days.  If you are quoting or relying on data that is even part of a day old, you are likely vastly underestimating the impact of this pandemic considering the huge increases in the numbers of people infected that even with the vast under-reporting is running 30,000 a day and continually increasing.

After a week of "social distancing" and the resultant relative isolation that entails, our family has been increasingly relying on video conferencing software to mitigate the isolation. It has been interesting to me as I talk to people outside of our family, how many people believe that this worldwide pandemic with somehow spontaneously disappear in a week or two. For example, the school systems in the State of Utah, presently, has a "two-week" plan in place that is open-ended but begs the issue of the severity of the pandemic. Here is a quote from the Provo City School District that illustrates the issue.

As a district, we recognize that yesterday's announcement to dismiss school for the next two weeks has probably caused you to have many questions. While this email contains a lot of details, it will hopefully answer many of your questions and provide direction for next week. The district will continue to provide direction as needed throughout this coming week. This information will be emailed to all parents and posted on the district website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Please read the entire email for important information for next week.

At the other end of the spectrum, I am seeing irrational panic buying on a huge scale. In contrast, I have spent my whole life hearing about the need for a reasonable amount of food storage that includes other essential items. This is not a "prepper" mentality that believes that the world as we know it will imminently end. It is a reasonable concern that individual and family conditions can become difficult because of loss of work, illness, or local disaster conditions. My family has used our "year's supply" to tide us over periods when our income was not sufficient to maintain our family. Of course, this practice was promoted by our Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the idea of preparedness is not unique to the Church. The current Church program on preparedness is focused on "Self Reliance." See Self-Reliance Services.

The unfortunate results of panic buying are that people acquire quantities of food and other items that they will never use and in some cases, do not know how to use. For example, for many years, the emphasis of the food storage program of the Church focused on basic foods such as wheat and other grains. This reflected the fact that many people had access to grain mills to make flour and could make their own bread. As time passed, this model of preparedness changed with the times. Presently, the idea of self-reliance focuses on individual skills and the food storage component is less focused on obtaining a "years supply" of anything. Here is a quote from the Church's statement on Food Storage.

What am I supposed to have in my food storage?
There are three main components of food storage:

• Food supply (three-month and long-term)
• Water supply
• Financial reserve

Store foods that are a part of your normal diet in your three-month supply. As you develop a longer-term storage, focus on food staples such as wheat, rice, pasta, oats, beans, and potatoes that can last 30 years or more. Learn more about a long-term food supply.

Longer-term food storage involves a dedicated pattern of rotation and constant use of the food items stored. See  “An Approach to Longer-Term Food Storage.”

You do not begin a food storage plan by running to the local store in a panic and buying large quantities of off-the-shelf food or other essentials. Before you go off half-cocked and start spending a chunk of money on food, you should realize that buying a large quantity of any one item does not solve the problem. Ask yourself this question: When was the last time I lived primarily on a diet of whole wheat? Food storage only works if you integrate your storage with your normal day-to-day living pattern. The second question I always have to ask when this topic comes up is do you have a wheat mill, that is, a machine to grind wheat. You can see wheat mills by searching online. Here is one "Buying Guide for Grain Mills." Back in the early 1970s, I was actually in the business of selling grain mills for a short time.

A disaster, such as the Coronavirus COVID-19, always reminds us that we need some level of preparation. However, once the crisis arrives the time for preparation is past and panic buying does not solve the issue. A pandemic proceeds over time. It is entirely unlike an earthquake or hurricane. It is not "over" in a matter of a few days or even a few weeks. Pandemics last months and years.

If you have somehow gotten the idea that this coronavirus is going to go away anytime soon, you need to sit down and plan for your short-term future and long term future in a realistic way that does not involve acquiring a mountain of toilet paper or bottled water,

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 19, 2020

Do you have the Coronavirus COVID-19? Is there someone or some agency you can call to find out and receive a test? Have you or one of your children ever had a strep throat? Did you go or take your child to the doctor to have the test done? When we had our seven children at home, we almost had a standing weekly appointment with our children's' pediatrician. Testing for an infection is and was for us, a routine medical procedure. What is happening with the Coronavirus? Even with all the hand-wringing rhetoric in the news, almost no medical tests for the virus are being done two months into a worldwide pandemic.

This week, one of the people I know quite well is a professional with an advanced degree. I cannot and will not disclose his identity for obvious reasons. He and his family live in the eastern part of the United States where there are multiple reports of the coronavirus infections. Just before the school was closed down, his child came home from school with a fever and all of the symptoms of the Coronavirus COVID-19. He also developed the symptoms. Not just hypochondria, but the symptoms as widely publicized. He tried to work through his employer and the county health department where he and his family are living but was repeatedly told that testing was not available nor did he or his child fall into the category of those who would be tested. They could not show contact with a person who already had the disease.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. But I do read a broad spectrum of news accounts daily. I do not fall into the category of those who read only what they want to hear. I know what Fox News has to say and I know what CNN has to say. I am also an attorney with years of trial experience. I know when crucial evidence is either being ignored or is missing altogether. Do you know how many tests for the Coronavirus have been performed in your state so far? We sort of know how many cases have been detected, but information about the number of tests is missing. If you test ten people and five of them turn out to have the virus, you know you have a serious problem but if a hundred people have the virus and you only test ten, you don't have any information about the seriousness of the problem.

Today, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center at about 5:00 am, there are 9,415 people in the United States with the Coronavirus. How many total have been tested? My guess is that the number confirmed is only as accurate as the number tested.

Here is in Utah, we have news reports that say, "Amid coronavirus supplies shortage, Utah is now telling most patients not to seek testing." Here is the quote from the article dated March 18, 2020.

In a news conference last month, not long after the first U.S. coronavirus case was reported, the director of Utah’s health department was optimistic that infections in the state could be isolated. 

“We know that these measures taken — isolation of people who are ill, and quarantining those who have been exposed before they become ill so you can prevent their spreading — this is effective,” Joseph Miner said in early February.

But those measures depend heavily on testing. Amid a shortage of coronavirus testing supplies, Utah health officials are now telling patients not to seek testing unless they are so sick they require extra medical care. 

“We … would like the ability of testing statewide for whomever is showing symptoms, but that’s just not the case right now,” state epidemiologist Angela Dunn said in a news briefing Tuesday.

Congress and the Administration want to spend billions (trillions?) of dollars on fighting the disease but I have yet to hear anything substantial. So you have to wait until you are dying to get tested? How many people around you have the disease? How do you know how serious the situation is in your state? According to the above-cited article, only about 27,000 people in the entire United States have been tested by public laboratories and we know that more than 9,000 have been confirmed infected. Think about it.

In my opinion, the money the government is talking about spending and paying out to people in cash is aimed at the faltering economy, not the Caronavirus at all.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 18, 2020

I hadn't planned to write so frequently but developments here in Utah are progressing very rapidly. Today we awoke to an earthquake. Actually, I was already up and working. We are far from the epicenter which was up in Magma, (appropriately named), Utah (oops Magna). There are quite a few local news stories. The trumpet on the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple fell off. See "Salt Lake Temple sustained minor damage during 5.7 earthquake." Well, if the lines were long at Costco from the Coronavirus COVID-19 yesterday, the lines ought to be longer today with the added incentive of an earthquake. Interestingly, the Temple was already under renovation partly for the reason to add seismic upgrades.

Panic buying is a common reaction to all kinds of emergencies and disasters. My wife and I have never had to buy anything in a panic because we have kept an adequate supply of essential items on hand all of our lives. Over the years, this supply of essentials has been generically termed a "Year's Supply." Lately, however, the time period has been reduced to a more reasonable 3-month supply. Food storage has commonly been associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but many other organizations and even churches promote self-reliance and preparedness. See Self-Reliance Services.

The one thing we cannot figure out is why the panic buyers have focused on toilet paper and bottled water.

Every day is a new adventure. Stray tuned for comments on social distancing and other vital topics.