Yesterday, my sainted mother turned 90. She and my dad have been married more than 72 years. My dad is now 90 and six months. I tried to find some statistics to see the rarity of their longevity. The closest thing I could find was a stat showing only 20 married couples in the world are currently married for 80 years or more. Despite not finding any facts, I do believe this is an incredible feat. By the way, my mom still takes care of their home, bakes all the time and makes three meals a day.
Numbers and statistics have always held my interest. I still know Stan Musial had a lifetime batting average of .331. I recall in 1968, Bob Gibson has an earned run average (ERA) of 1.12. Still a record to this day. Some stats and facts just stick in my head.
I mentioned a few days ago that I’ve stopped looking at Pandemic numbers because they aren’t reliable and they vary so much. I haven’t really changed that stance, but I came across some interesting statistics that tell a story. A story just starting to be told. Not by the media, but by ordinary citizens. People, who like me, have an affinity for numbers and facts.
The state of Illinois is ranked fourth in the country in number of Covid-19 cases. In one particular county there are 95 cases. The population of that county is approximately 171,500. That extrapolates to 0.00104373 chance of contracting the virus. Despite this revealing statistic, the entire state is still in lockdown and schools are canceled for the remainder of the school year. I was told there have been 84 recoveries. Seems to me it would make more sense to quarantine the people who have not recovered and let the 171,490 get back to doing what they were doing before the lockdown.
In the state of North Carolina, there are 11,509 cases and a population of about 10.4 million. That extrapolates to 0.001106634 chance of contracting the virus. Sadly the entire state is still on lock down. In the county I live in their are 137 cases. The population is around 101,000. That extrapolates to 0.00135643. A larger percentage than the state, but still very slight. And the fact that more than half the cases are confined to nursing homes makes the risk even less. Again, quarantine the at-risk individuals, continue the hand washing and the scientifically beneficial measures and let the 100,000+ get back to life as we knew it.
Recently, two urgent care doctors from Kern County, California held a press conference to share their statistics. They were challenged by the media at the press conference and did a nice job of explaining their facts. Nevertheless their press conference video was removed from YouTube the next day. According to YouTube it was removed because they were telling people it was time to get back to work and that opinion is contrary to the WHO/CDC guidelines.
These doctors were dealing with numbers and with science. Science is telling the doctors that healthy people stuck in their homes generate weakened immune systems that will be far more susceptible to viruses once they go out into the world. People who are not working become depressed, experience increased anxiety and in some cases become suicidal. They sit confined at home and wonder how they will pay their rent, mortgage, car payments, utility bills or feed their families. These are facts of science and supported by numbers.
Elected officials need to understand these numbers as well. At this point they appear to be ignoring numbers and statistics that are readily available and frankly tell the real story of this “pandemic.” There will be a thousand stories connected to this outbreak in the months and years to come. Right now the story of the day is the amount of fear that has promulgated a larger portion of society and the media leveraging that fear to fill air time. The problems associated with the virus have become far greater than the virus.
The people who have died is beyond tragic. Whether they died “with” Covid-19 or “from” it is a huge question, but almost irrelevant to my point. My point is despite the number of deaths and cases being magnified by media scoreboards the data doesn’t support a continued lock down. It is only making things worse for everyone.
And to think I haven’t even discussed the trillions of dollars congress is allocating. Dollars that aren’t even going to help those out of work, out of health care, child care and food. That’s a story for another day.
My 95 year old friend George told me it was time to get back to work a month ago. He was right then and he is even more right today.
Until next time…