COVID-19 and the trashing of the Global Economy
I always take a sideways view of matters so, from the very beginning of this “pandemic” the numbers made no sense to me. Governments across the globe have now committed to
- causing the greatest economic collapse ever seen
- causing the loss of hundreds of millions of jobs – with all the consequences that brings to people’s lives
- killed far more people with pre-existing serious health conditions (eg; among the “Top 10 causes of Death” published by the WHO – ref: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death) than have or are likely to die from COVID-19
Is it worth asking why?
Without digging into numbers in detail (drill down as much as you like – there’s plenty of blame and questions to be answered but the over-arching picture remains the same) I’d like to take just one statistical comparison.
Every year around 1.4 million people are killed on the roads. As of 16:30 US CET today the death toll from COVID-19 is 776,157 – or about half – ref: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. COVID-19 has “only” been with us for about 9 months so annualise that figure to get an annualised death toll of 1 million attributed to COVID-19.
Even if we look at infections, the annualised COVID-19 infections are ~29 million. Every year medical services around the globe deal with 39~56 million cases of common flu requiring between 18~26 million medical visits and 410~740,000 hospital stays – ref: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm – so why did anyone think that hospital ICU wards would become overrun and care for patients with existing life-threatening conditions had to be withheld to “deal with the pandemic?
So, a little perspective and a question … WHY
- is it NOT worth trashing the global economy (etc) for an annual road death toll of 1.4 million
- but it IS worth trashing the global economy for an annual death toll 26% lower caused by a previously unseen disease variant?
Before somebody tries to explain the answer to that conundrum it is worth looking at the global impact of COVID-19 in isolation. The global population passed 77 billion some time ago and the average lifespan is around 75 years. It follows that every year just over 1 billion people die of nothing more than old age, accident or “some other” disease. Of course, their death certificates describe a more precise cause but that doesn’t matter.
What matters is the proportion of those deaths attributed to COVID-19 amounts to just 0.1% of the expected annual death toll.
Read that again. COVID-19 amounts to just 0.1% of the expected annual death toll.
That is 1/1,000th of the number of people who die each year anyway.
Is it worth trashing the global economy – even if ALL those deaths attributed to COVID-19 are ADDITIONAL deaths – ie; they would not have occurred but for COVID-19?
Does it help to answer the question if that statistic is presented as the number of years it would take COVID-19 to wipe out all human life in the absence of a vaccine? Because that number is just over 132 years.
But it has been obvious from the start that COVID-19 is not an equal opportunity killer. It kills relatively few young or healthy people (remember we are talking about the global population here – not just your group of friends or colleagues or even countrymen – let alone the individual sad stories paraded by news channels and tabloid newspapers) it kills predominantly the disabled, the elderly and those already weakened by pre-existing morbidities.
To all reading this – I am NOT saying we should not care about the death of a person because they are elderly, disabled or have pre-existing health conditions. Of course we should. I speak as someone who fits all three of those categories so my purpose here is to be objective, not dismiss a disease because it only culls the weak. To be absolutely clear, I am NOT taking a position on anything to do with how the disease operates. I am only concerned with facts and their consequences. Because the “numbers make no sense to me”.
Recent reports (eg; Times UK https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-in-three-victims-of-covid-19-had-a-disability-dcdx3gm20 UK Office of National Statistics https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbydisabilitystatusenglandandwales/2marchto15may2020 Disabled World https://www.disabled-world.com/health/influenza/coronavirus/coronavirus-mortality.php) show that of those whose deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 an astonishing 65% have been disabled (read the links to understand the definition).
As a person of the disabled persuasion myself and someone with multiple co-morbidities as well I can state my experience as a well-educated, well able to seek care resident of France (the country which claims to have the world’s best health system) that people like me do not get the care we deserve (even if we pay for it) and this factor combined with the very great likelihood that somebody with pre-existing serious health conditions (eg; cardiovascular disease, stroke, COPD … see that WHO Top 10 again) are very likely to be pushed off this mortal coil by an attack of the flu. Common or garden pneumonia very nearly saw me off 18 months ago. So the fact that 65% of recorded COVID-19 victims are disabled comes as no surprise to me.
My point is not a cry for better health care for the disabled (though that IS a worthy subject in itself) it is that – returning to the numbers – those whose deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 are in the main people likely to fall within the ~1 billion people who die on this planet every year anyway.
Which means …
That the IMPACT of COVID-19 on the planet’s population is actually some fraction of 0.1% which makes the hysterical reactions of governments around the world even less understandable.
If you still have a job and can afford your Internet connection, answers on a postcard please.
I would truly love to know WHY so much damage has been caused on the excuse of heading off such a trivial threat.