The overwhelming majority of people do not have any
significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that
the fatality rate, if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a
risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates
that were 20 to 30 times higher.
Protecting older,
at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York
City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600
hospitalizations to date. For people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7
percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients
with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Leora Horwitz
of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the
strongest risk factor for hospitalization." Even early WHO
reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more
recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and
lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing
positive for infection have no symptoms.
Vital population
immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging
the problem.
We know from decades of medical science that infection itself
allows people to generate an immune response — antibodies — so
that the infection is controlled throughout the population by
“herd immunity.” That is the main purpose of widespread
immunization in other viral diseases, to assist with population
immunity. In this virus, we know that medical care is not even
necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It
is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic. In
fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately
available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By
transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then
generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward
the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat.
People are dying
because other medical care is not getting done due to
hypothetical projections.
Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored
and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19
patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and
many hospitals abruptly stopped “nonessential” procedures and
surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases,
like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and
potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including
emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed.
Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent
of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart
attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some
dying and many now facing permanent disability.
We have a clearly
defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted
measures.
The overwhelming evidence around the world consistently shows
that a clearly defined group, older people and others with
underlying conditions, is more likely to have a serious illness
requiring hospitalization and more likely to die from COVID-19.
It is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy
to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact
with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be
the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected
people, given that they already live in confined places with
highly restricted entry.
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