Is The Cure Worse Than The Disease?

My comments are based on this article from Stat News:

I do have concerns that the cure is worse than the disease and please note that my comments here may be controversial or seem insensitive for some. The net is: the data we have is terrible because of a failure to be prepared and have tests in place, obtain ground-truth data, and to have an interoperable health data platform. As the article outlines, we are making decisions based upon information from data and models from outside our health system or simply unreliable data. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that containment is shot — expect (because of testing now starting to take place at scale) that we will see massive spikes in cases — meaning its been here for a while. In a long conversation with my father (a Physician that lived through Polio), containment then wasn’t an option and there was a constant shortage of iron lungs. And, it appears — still unclear because of our lack of good data on COVID19 — that Polio was much more transmissible with a higher death rate.

He outlined that they would sit shoulder to shoulder in movie theaters during that time and that he had borrowed clothes from a friend who had been diagnosed with Polio. The option then was herd immunity, not containment. And, IMO, that was a much more frightening disease in that it effected children so severely…it didn’t simply target the elderly (and remember we had a President who had been afflicted by Polio).

The containment plan we’re doing currently is meant to alter the curve so that our health systems are not overwhelmed and so that more people (including those impacted by not having care for other conditions) don’t die. It doesn’t necessarily alter the volume of infections that we’ll get over time…we’re just trying to buy ourselves time. Time for our health systems; time for a cure…but it is estimated that it is also now permanently with us ala the Flu, etc (i.e., we’ll see this again on a regular basis).

There is no question that people will die from this virus — and potentially a significant number of people — we need to realize that and not imagine that it won’t happen. Expect a worst case scenario but you can still hope for the best. It’s also accurate to say, as the article points out, that the death rate may be wildly off and much lower. We are not Gods and nature finds a way. Had our leadership spoken candidly and honestly months ago when we saw the (even open source) intelligence as to what was transpiring in China and put in place containment plans with major companies, banks, insurers and a proactive stimulus package to protect Main Street first and then Wall Street, we would be in a much different situation. Had that been done, people would feel more comfortable with containment without a fear of losing their jobs. Instead, people are losing their jobs…rapidly. It is Main Street that is now effected first and our economy is built on the Consumer. The 2008 financial crisis was primarily Wall Street that was hit followed then by Main Street. This is the opposite while also simultaneously all at once. The handling of this event (not the virus) is creating massive societal instabilities and ripple effects that may / will prove very difficult to unwind in a fast fashion and it is already having devastating effects on people, small businesses and families. Simply put, we’re in perhaps what is the the greatest experiment the world has gone through and our economic structure was not set up to handle this.

I sincerely hope that the data and models based upon information from China and other regions is inaccurate and the fatality rate is much lower. I hope that the economic repercussions are not as negative as they might seem. But hope is not a strategy, we can’t change past decisions, and we have to solve the problems in front of us now. As such, we work the problems. Unfortunately, perhaps our biggest problem is that we have no leaders in positions of authority to truly solve them…

One parting comment: the Renaissance most likely would not have happened without the Plague. May we make this our moment for a Renaissance that ultimately lifts all boats of society; that tackles the big problems; that provides a better future. Let’s get it done!