Explaining The Real Covid-19 Data And Results
I would like to begin today with a thought to consider as we discuss our current “Covid situation”. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled. And that has made all the difference.” -Robert Frost
There are many times in our lives when we encounter such divergent roads, and we must choose whether we will take the “easy road” that the masses are traveling, or the less traveled path that may present more challenges. Oftentimes this route is the obvious right one, and you innately recognize this fact. Unfortunately, our instincts sometimes become clouded by the chatter around us and we miss an opportunity to awaken to a whole new perspective on a situation presented.
I submit that this is part of why we have done some of what we have regarding the coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic. We have listened to the chatter. Some of which has come from individuals who may not have had the correct facts before them. They also may have had an “agenda” of one type or another. I think we can all agree that politics have played a part in all of this, regardless of which side of the isle you may lean.
Today I would like to present some thoughts about what we have done, and perhaps what we should do as we proceed through these unprecedented times. I present these ideas with 9 months of exploring and studying the facts that we now have at our disposal, which in all honesty were not available when this all started. Take them for what they are worth at this time. You can agree with some, which I think many will. There may be some ideas here you totally disagree with and that is fine too. But please remember that we cannot grow out of this conundrum without at least peering down that less traveled pathway.
Much of what I will present here is taken from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Dr. Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. He also holds a Ph.D. in economics. He is also a director of the Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. With this background he is well suited to comment on the current situation in which we find ourselves.
According to Dr. Bhattacharya the Covid “case fatality rate” in March was reported as roughly 3%. Which means that 3 out of every 100 people who were identified as “cases” of Covid in early March died from it. However today the fatality rate is less than one half of 1 percent. Why such a big change in the last 7 to 9 months? Well, there are a couple of reasons for this which affect the calculation of this number. You see in early March we were not identifying the people who had been infected by Covid-19. We just didn’t have the testing capabilities to be able to identify the cases. Understanding how the “case fatality rate” is calculated is key to understanding the discrepancy. This calculation depends on knowing the total number of confirmed cases, because the number of deaths must be divided by the number of confirmed cases. So, we needed to know the actual number of confirmed cases in order to calculate the Covid fatality rate. Meaning the number of people who actually had the disease. Unfortunately, in March only a small fraction of infected people who got sick went to the hospital, and therefore we had many “unidentified cases”. This number is made up of people who were not in hospitals, and in many instances, actually had limited or no symptoms and certainly did not die. This created a “highly misleading death rate according to Dr. Bhattacharya.
The way we would be able to get an accurate picture of the Covid fatality rate would be to perform blood tests on all cases. This can be done for other viruses like chicken pox. Unfortunately, with Covid-19 this is not possible since the antibodies, like other coronaviruses fade over time. So, testing individuals who suspect they have had the infection would not be accurate. Therefore, even if we were to test those who may have been infected early on, but had little or no symptoms, the antibodies may have diminished to the point where they were undetectable. Meaning that we may never be able to identify all the total number of “confirmed cases”.
Dr. Bhattacharya did research studies on this in April. He used antibody tests to identify the number of people in Santa Clara, California who had been infected. At that time there were approximately 1000 confirmed cases of Covid-19. However, the doctor found 50,000 people who had been infected using the antibody tests. This meant that the fatality rate was not the reported 3%, but rather 0.2%. Rather than a rate of 3 in 100, the rate was 2 in 1000. This is certainly more than any of us would like to see, but it is a far cry from 3 in 100 people. Since that time there have been at least 82 other studies around the world confirming this data. In each of these cases the fatality rate was essentially the same at 0.2%. In New York City the rate was about 0.5%, and in Idaho it was 0.13%.
Unfortunately, since this was a totally new, “novel” virus we didn’t know quite how to handle it. As a result of the aggressive treatment protocols that were implemented such as the wide use of ventilators which might have actually been counterproductive, we may have done many things wrong. There were those traveling down the less traveled road who supported the use of steroids to deal with the excessive inflammation caused by the infection, but unfortunately it was not until many months later that this protocol was incorporated into the treatment plan of those hospitalized.
In my next installment of this article, I will look at those who are at higher risk and should be protected. These are the individuals who should be sheltering in place perhaps, but not those who are at little of no risk of a fatal outcome. Once again with the knowledge gained over the last 9 months, we can make some well thought out suggestions regarding guidelines that we can use to shelter those more vulnerable from sustaining a life-threatening infection.