Contagious is Not the Same as Deadly

Note: This post was written more than a week ago. We debated publishing it, but now there are more and more voices saying the same things.

When this new virus first hit we had a difficult time understanding what made it any different from other viruses that show up now and then. Explanations seemed vague. Proof felt illusive. As time has gone on there have been a lot of conflicting reports and statistics, but it does appear that the China virus, (now politically correctly called the corona virus although there are other corona viruses), is more contagious than usual for a virus. Or not. But if so, what does this really mean?

Let's talk a little more about contagiousness. When Janice stayed for weeks and months at a time at our daughters' little house near Washington D. C. to help when the triplets were small, and another of our daughters and her family lived in the basement apartment of that house, more than once a violent stomach flu raged through the entire house like clockwork, despite stepped-up laundering, sanitizing wipe downs, and handwashing. We all got a kick out of one of the little kids naming the miserable sickness "slobbery poop water," which we shortened to the SPWs or SPdubs.

We tell this little story to highlight how each healthy person's ordinary life is interrupted, to some degree, now and then, by some illness or other getting passed around. We have noticed, since we have become empty nesters, that we don't get as many colds or flus or SPdubs as we used to, probably because we simply aren't around as many people as much, especially children who go to school every day. The more isolated you are, the less prone you are to catch whatever is going around.  But it may work the other way too. We tend to get whatever is going around if we are suddenly exposed closely, perhaps because our immune system hasn't been getting as much exercise, so to speak.

It is common knowledge that many illnesses are highly contagious. Many people think this China virus has shown itself to be one of those. This appears to be the sole reason a big part of the world is so-called quarantined (although never before in the world have well people been quarantined!). But the fact that the virus is highly contagious may have nothing to do whatever with how dangerous or deadly it is when people actually get it, especially when compared to normal rates of death from this or that which are part of life.

Now let's talk about dangerousness and deadliness. Is the China virus dangerous or deadly enough to intimidate the world into an unproved, unprecedented, indefinite period of tyrannical quarantine, people losing income, people losing their businesses, worry, fear, depression, and suicidality? Is it helpful to let criminals out of prisons endangering the public safety? What about the huge urban homelessness/tent city problem we usually hear so much about?  Suddenly, this and other societal ills and evils that obviously have a huge impact on the passing of contagions seem to have disappeared. Not only is contagiousness not the same as deadliness, but politically correctness seems to trump both. 

The entire model for the continuing lockdown is based on a dire prediction that came from a very leftist college in England, the Imperial College. This information was that over a million people in the U. S. would die from this virus. As more people have been tested, the more it is being seen that the deadliness of this virus is not nearly what was predicted. People have now admitted that the fatality rate is actually 25 times less than predicted. And of course only a tiny percentage of the population has been tested to date. Could be a huge number have been exposed with no harm done. Could be to most people this highly contagious virus is not dangerous at all. It appears that when otherwise healthy people contract even a very bad case, they completely recover. Perhaps most repel the virus or get such a mild case that they do not experience any symptoms at all, and kill off the virus naturally.

In fact, many many more people are said to have died of the seasonal flu already this year than the China flu, even with flu shots being prepared each year to match mutations. In the U. S. alone 20,000-60,000 deaths have been attributed to the seasonal flu in each of the last seven years.

In 2017 almost 3 million people died in the U.S. from this or that. Death is a fact of life. And suddenly people are acting like it never happens.Or that it's completely preventable. Or that people who accept this fact are monsters.


It should also be universally understood and reported by now that the vast majority of those who are seriously affected by this virus, and the seasonal flu also, have serious underlying health conditions, some even terminal illnesses. Many of these individuals would have died of their primary condition, perhaps hurried along by whatever cold or flu or pneumonia they caught. We had a close relative die in November who had several, chronic, life-threatening heath conditions, but who had been going about his life for many years amazingly well, most recently relying on portable oxygen. He even drove on a road trip the day he got suddenly so dangerously ill that he had to be hospitalized. He died six days later. This sounds very similar to the China virus fatalities: very health-compromised people who get a mysterious pneumonia-like complication on top of their main problems, which their already weakened bodies cannot combat. For all we know, he caught the virus and it put him finally over the edge.The doctor had said that if he got anything whatsoever at that point he wouldn't survive.

Very sick people succumbing to all sorts of things, including the seasonal flu, is nothing new. And yet the public is perceiving that such deaths are caused by this new virus only, even that perfectly healthy older people, or healthy people of any age, are in danger of dying of this virus. It may well be that many deaths are being attributed to the virus, when the patient actually died of their primary illness.  We don't say a person who lost a long battle with cancer died of pneumonia. We say he died of complications due to his long battle with cancer. Many are dying with the virus, not of it. In some cases perhaps the deceased patient didn't have the virus at all, but is counted as a virus statistic. This is the kind of thing that skews statistics and causes undue concern. (Note 4/17: This unscientific padding of numbers has now been admitted to on national TV by national expert, Deborah Birx. Autopsies are not done, nor is testing.)

The real facts show that while this virus is one of those highly contagious bugs, it is not very dangerous or deadly at all to the general population, thank heavens. While the contagiousness is said to be high, the death rate is quite low and is proving to be lower with each test taken. In addition, the world has a record high elderly demographic. People are living longer, even with chronic bad health, than ever before. So this unfortunately gives the China virus, along with other viruses, a large vulnerable group to prey on.

But these tidbits of real information are habitually glossed over.

The most logical and human and sane thing to do in a free country that guarantees certain rights to the people would be to warn vulnerable individuals to self-isolate until the danger for them has passed. Indeed, many people isolate their babies from RSV during the flu season, and many people with chronic respiratory problems isolate themselves too. Seriously, people know how to wash their hands and otherwise protect themselves and loved ones, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, and even strangers from viruses spread in this way.

Even as we follow the rules, everyone ought to be thinking about why the danger from this virus is being overstated and misreported, why responses are reliant on incomplete and inconsistent information, and why news reports are full of blaming and politics. Everyone ought to take into account the divisive spirit of the times, the existence of powerful, despotic, communist countries, the fierce competition between countries, the unmitigated hatred many Americans have shown for the current U. S. president, and the fact that a very popular socialist is running for president of the United States of America.

Everyone ought to wonder why such draconian measures have been indefinitely put in place to control the movements, activities, and occupations of the general public, like never before. Could be there are principalities and powers behind the scenes who have no qualms about exploiting any disaster for reasons of their own.