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"This Threat is Real and Serious"

3/25/2020

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             “This Threat is Real and Serious”
             Blog post Number 2 for COVID-19
                      James A. Zarzana
                                  *
[This was drafted a few days ago, so some stats are behind. None have improved.]
                                   *
     I generally use Facebook for keeping up with friends and family. In the best of times, I try to avoid political posts, try not to be snarky, and try to spread humor (and, yes, PR for The Marsco Saga).
     But, these are the worst of times.

       I just “unfriended” someone. The other day, when he posted that the seasonal influenza of 2018 was worse than COVID-19, and that today’s virus was all a media hoax, I had enough. At first I wanted to respond sharply with the facts, then decided just to unfriend him.
      Here is pretty much what I would have said if I had responded.
      The 2018 seasonal flu season was extremely severe, the worst in a long time. It killed 80,000 Americans that year when an exceptionally high influenza toll usually runs about 35,000 to 55,000. The numbers were high that year for several reasons. One, the virus was just particularly nasty. Two, it caught the medical community off guard, especially the experts who make the yearly flu vaccine. Those researchers have to make a “best guess” on what to guard against with the yearly flu. Researchers make their guess months in advance so that enough vaccine can be produced. That year, getting ready for 2018, the guess was wrong. Even people who had the vaccine got sick, which is not supposed to happen.
        But to compare the whole 2018 flu season to the COVID-19 death toll is not a fair comparison. The toll as it stood last Sunday (March 22, 2020) is 348 Americans dead. But it’s a false comparison. 80,000 to 348 suggests to the uninformed and unthinking how much worse the 2018 flu was than our epidemic today. This false analogy is not an indication of the severity of COVID-19.
        And I’ve seen other posts about the COVID-19 being a hoax, a media invention, a Democratic plot. Some deniers say it is all hype and nonsense and panic. That “Big Pharma” is behind it somehow to make us all vaccinate. Don’t believe any such nonsense. The COVID-19 threat is real and serious.
         Here are the numbers that concern the World Health Organization (the WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (the CDC). COVID-19 is highly contagious; you can have it without showing symptoms. During the first week that you have it but are showing no symptoms, you can be spreading it. The first week you do have symptoms, you can also spread it. So someone with the virus, even a mild case, is highly contagious for two weeks.
         The vast majority of those who get COVID-19 will have mild-to-moderate symptoms: fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, and in about half the cases some bowel issues like diarrhea. Most people with these mild-to-moderate symptoms, about 80% of those infected, do not need to be hospitalized or even tested for the virus. They should stay home, avoid contact with your family in your home, rest, and take acetaminophen, not ibuprofen, for fever and body aches. Ride it out in isolation. Wash your hands often and thoroughly.
      These symptoms, by the way, do resemble the seasonal influenza and sometimes a common cold or seasonal allergies. But remember, the contagious person may be infecting the next victim who will not suffer this disease with only mild-to-moderate symptoms. The elderly, those with an underlying medical condition, like diabetes or lung problems, may exhibit more severe and deadly symptoms. Also, this disease is regularly attacking healthy adults at an alarming rate.
       In the end, most Americans may suffer through COVID-19 with only mild-to-moderate symptoms. No doubt. None in this group will need hospitalization.
       Severe cases, however, are another story. About 20% of those infected will be serious cases. These cases begin to show signs of disorientation, a lack of interest in food, dehydration, high fever, serious cough, so much difficulty breathing that the patient may need a ventilator, which means hospitalization.
         Here are the numbers to show just how serious this pandemic is. CDC numbers of the seasonal influenza: Mild season to a severe outbreak: 12,000 to 55,000 American deaths yearly. Note, 2018 was well above that with 80,000 deaths. Typically, 140,000 to 710,000 Americans get the influenza each year so seriously that we need hospitalization. In total, about 9.2 to 35.5 million Americans typically get the seasonal flu. About half of the US population gets their annual flu vaccine, which is the reason only about 10% of Americans get the flu in a severe season. And yes, the seasonal flu does kills its victims, but at about a 0.1% rate.
          COVID-19 is a different virus altogether. Since we have no vaccine, it is hitting us much more widely than the seasonal flu. Here’s the CDC predictions for how the US outbreak may go.         
        In the population of the USA, about 330 million, the CDC and other research centers predict a 40% to 80% infection rate. This is what Governor Cuomo of New York has been saying, and he’s been making some drastic emergency measures based on those numbers.
      Let me take 50% infection rate as a means of explanation. If 50% of us get the COVID-19 virus, then that’s 165 million infected, well above the 9.2 to 35.5 million annually who have the seasonal flu. Remember that 0.1% death rate for seasonal flu? In some countries the death rate for COVID-19 is ranging from 5% to 10%.
      Potentially, then, 165 million may be infected just in the USA. If 20% need hospitalization—that would be about 33 million Americans seriously ill at once. With anything approaching these numbers, our health care system will be overwhelmed, stretched well beyond capacity. To hear governors and state health officials use the word “tsunami” to describe this pandemic is NOT an exaggeration. Our hospitals simply cannot handle even a fraction of 33 million patients. There just aren’t enough beds and ventilators and staff for that. And even at a modest 3% death rate here in the USA, that 50% infection rate may produce close to 5 million deaths.
      The Great Influenza of 1918, the so-called Spanish Flu, killed 675,000 Americans in a country of 120 million. It did so in about an 18-month period. The death rate in the UK in that pandemic was 5%. The death rate in poor counties like Italy and Spain was closer to 10%. My use of 3% death rate for COVID-19 is “low-balling” the predicted death rate.
      Now, I am not trying to cause panic. But I am trying to inform people that this is a serious pandemic. It is hitting everywhere around the globe. Governors who are closing down states are trying to minimize the number of infected cases to decrease the numbers going into the hospitals at once. Five states have now implemented travel bans and business restrictions to stop the spread: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Other states have imposed some travel and business restrictions. Even some mayors, like South Bend’s, have ordered no unnecessary travel in their municipalities. In some states, bars and restaurants, gyms and movie theaters are closed. No large gatherings are permitted. Many concerts and conferences are canceled. Sporting events and tournaments have been called off. In Indiana, the governor just ordered Hoosiers to stay at home until April 7th. All in an effort to slow the spread of this highly contagious disease.
      And note: There are really no federal guidelines at this point. None. States are having to go it alone.
      I mentioned how little the US Federal Government is doing because it is a serious break with how the Feds have confronted others disasters in the past. President Trump put a science-denier in charge of the federal response. Trump has called this a hoax, a way to try to impeach him, a Democratic plot, and a Chinese virus. He’s blamed President Obama time and again for the failure of his own response.
      Leaders lead. They make tough decisions. They ask the American people to sacrifice and work together to face this. Instead, Trump asked us to believe that it will all go away one day without the federal government lifting a finger. The DOW has yet to believe him. Those companies laying off thousands aren’t buying his spiel.
      The whole country is, and will continue to, suffer from Trump’s lack of leadership.
      I certainly hope I am wrong. I hope the graphs, based on the reality of how the virus hit China and Italy, predicting a tsunami of severe sickness and death in the USA are wrong. I hope hospitals find the beds and respirators and staff and resilience to deal with all this. I hope those laid off from work will not lose their livelihoods and homes and life savings. I hope those young people especially, who seem to think this is hitting just older folks, realize this naïve notion is a myth. In Italy today (NBC News Sunday Morning), more and more young people are being admitted to Italian hospitals; once there, they are dying at the same rate as older victims. 
      Please take this pandemic seriously. Social distance yourself. Only go to the grocery store and if needed the pharmacy. Take your temperature regularly throughout the day to monitor your health. Wash your hands. Distance yourself from others. Don’t watch FOX News, which is downplaying this pandemic and often spreading disinformation. Listen to the best sources, like the CDC and WHO and NPR and serious, legitimate and credible news agencies.
      I hope in a few months I am relieved because this blog’s predictions have been proven to be inaccurate and seriously off base. In the meantime, please stay safe and act accordingly because this threat is real and serious. 

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Italy in lockdown 
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Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York taking the lead in fighting this outbreak. New York is one of the centers of the outbreak. 
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"When the World Used to Be Normal"

3/20/2020

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“                      "When the World Used to Be Normal”
                             Blog post for COVID-19
                                James A. Zarzana
                                           *
            The world is so unusual now that to begin this blog by saying “our lives are no longer normal” seems senseless. First off, aside from COVID-19, Marianne and I are not in our home of 28 years in Marshall, Minnesota, but in a small rental in Michiana, the area along the Michigan/Indiana border near South Bend. We’re here because we have retired from teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU), the reason we moved to Marshall in the first place.
           For the past several years, as our retirements approached, we planned on moving back to the South Bend area, since this is where we met and married and lived for a few years. Our daughter, our only child, was born in South Bend, and Marianne’s parents have lived here in Michiana for many years.
During our time in Marshall, we have been in and out of South Bend and other parts of Indiana and Illinois often. Weddings, funerals, holidays, campus visits, graduations, and plain old visits to the grandparents brought us here usually twice a year. Our daughter, Elaine, like us a Notre Dame alum, had her graduation party at her grandparents’ home. We’ve used their home as a base for summer vacations and holiday celebrations. And football weekends, don’t forget about those. Plenty of those.
            And so, it was “normal” to move back here as our Golden Years spread out before us. Except, we’re really transitioning not retiring. We’re pivoting to continue and enhance our writing careers. I have three novels of The Marsco Saga published and am working on the fourth and final book in that series. Marianne has a poetry manuscript she is finalizing for publication and is working on a documentary about Sister Jean Lenz, OSF, a seminal professor and administrator brought to campus to aid Notre Dame in its transition from an all-male bastion to a coed institution.
We once had, and still have, grand plans for our Golden Years.
We arrived here March 1, 2020, with a real estate agent lined up and a list of needs and wants for an affordable condo. How hard can buying a place be?
          Soon after arriving at our temporary rental, news blubs from distant China and then closer Italy filled the airwaves about the coronavirus, COVID-19. But except that it was rampant in an area of Italy where I have relatives, the news was not something worrying us.
          Until Seattle. Until New York State. Until California. Until Indiana and Michigan closed bars and restaurants and schools. Until Notre Dame shut down for a few weeks and now possibly the rest of the semester. Until SMSU extended Spring Break for a week, then moved classes online, and now has canceled its May commencement for the Class of 2020.
          Marianne’s parents are elderly. Both will be in their 90s by summer’s end. Both are in relatively good physical health, but are showing signs of aging. Temperamental signs. Signs that make it difficult to convince them to stay home and not expect us to come over regularly. Marianne goes over as much as is feasible, but dealing with the headstrong is not an easy task.
          Our little rented house is near a bike path where we’ve enjoyed the warm spring. We love walking together anyway, so this path has been our gateway to afternoon walks and talks. Of all coincidences, we are near a dive bar that was here when Marianne was an undergrad at Notre Dame many years ago. In those days, Michigan had a different drinking age than Indiana, and so, dives such as this one were popular. Even before moving here, the bar came up regularly in Murphy-Zarzana lore. A funny story of the innocent antics of a college kid.
            The bar has been shut down for at least two weeks by order of the governor. Restaurants and spas and gyms and theaters are now closed. Notre Dame called on all its overseas students to return home, shutting down a score of international study programs in London, Rome, Jerusalem, and France. The mayor has mandated only essential travel in South Bend, but he may not have the legal power to enforce it.
          We need to eat, so we shop. On March 2nd, on our first shopping trip to Meijer’s, a large supermarket, we couldn’t find any hand sanitizer. Not to worry. We knew people were panicking about just that one item. This weekend, I found the shelves growing emptier and emptier. Soup and TP aisles were picked over. Products were there, just not the selection one expects at a large American superstore. Cleaning products like disinfectant wipes are now all gone.
          I have seen no signs of panic, but the area does have an unusual, uneasy feel about it. A quiet, tense atmosphere. A foreboding eeriness.
         I’ve lived through pre-blizzard shopping frenzies in Minnesota, usually a few each winter. People are generally resigned but upbeat about a few days home with the kids, time to watch some TV, especially if the Vikings were playing down south in Dallas or Miami, even if chicken wings had been impossible to find. I used to joke that pre-blizzard everyone went out for a gallon of whole milk, a superfluous 24-pack of TP, and a loaf of white bread.
         But the Weather Channel always gave a pretty accurate end date of a blizzard. And Marshall would clear the streets. Our snow service would clear our driveway. It took time, but no one worried about everyone, everywhere. No one questioned the word of the government and political leaders about the severity of the weather. You could watch the blizzard on radar, after all.
         COVID-19 is so different. Invisible. Deadly. With spouting denial from those who should tell us the truth. Falsehood and outright lies shouldn’t be policy. Russian disinformation shouldn’t spread as though it were the truth. The DOW shouldn’t crash 30% in 30 days, and Delta shouldn’t ground 75% of its fleet. And then the word from China and Italy. The deaths mounting. No word from countries like Iran and North Korea and Russia that must be suffering terribly but not reporting the facts.
        And worse yet, many people not taking the warning seriously. Florida beaches filled with college students for their last spring break before entering “the real world.” Well, the world just got real. Listen to the news out of NYC, out of San Francisco, places where adults are in charge of public safety.
         And so, here we are. Waiting to buy a new place. Waiting for the count of victims to rise. Listening to the reports that at first stated that “this is only hitting older folks”; reports that then became “mostly those taken to hospitals now are younger.” Wondering if our relatives are sick. Praying.
          It’s not a blizzard, and it’s not lasting only a few inconvenient days.
          Stay safe in this world that is no longer normal. A world in which we do not yet know what “the new normal” is.
          Take care of yourself and others—even if from a safe distance.  
 
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