You’ve clearly bought into the media narrative that most deaths with Clovid19 “only” occur in old people or people with “underlying health conditions” as if that implies that most people under 60 are safe. Have you considered how many adults have “underlying health conditions” as defined in these terms? Just consider some of the most commonly listed health conditions in these contexts:
3.6% of adult Americans are immunosuppressed
10% of adult Americans have diabetes
33% of adult Americans have high blood pressure
39% of adult Americans are obese
15% of adult Americans have kidney disease (this one surprised me)
~50% of adult Americans have some form of heart disease
And that doesn’t exhaust all the medical conditions that have been cited as “underlying conditions” in Covid19 deaths. Even allowing for significant overlap, it’s clear that well over half of adult Americans have at least one underlying condition that would be cited as “explanations” for their death. So we are not talking about a small group of people here, we are talking about the majority of the population. Even if you are relatively young and healthy, are you sure there is no condition in your health history that could be cited as an “explanation” for your death to Covid19? Do you have asthma or other autoimmune disease?
Most of the deaths I have heard about locally have been men and women in their 50s in work and without obvious health problems, but perhaps had one of the conditions cited, or perhaps none as sometimes seems to be the case.
Plus there are important open questions surrounding what it even means to “recover” from this illness, since many of those who survived the initial illness appear to suffer many kinds of health problems. Lung, kidney, heart, and other organ damage has been reported in survivors from the disease.
Angela Merkel gave an excellent speech last week in the Bundestag where she said those in their 70s and 80s (and presumably older) are valued members of German society and are due extra consideration when forming policy, not less, during this crisis. Merkel has been the stand out leader during this crisis. Germany is lucky to have such leadership right now.
Why are millions not dying?
1. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but most countries on earth have implemented social distancing on a completely unprecedented scale. That must have something to do with it.
2. In many countries deaths already exceed deaths during bad years for annual influenza, which occur when no comparable mitigating policies are in place and when vaccines are in widespread use.
3. It’s not over yet. It’s only just begun and it’s very likely that millions will die, unfortunately.
4. We don’t have accurate figures from China. It seems at least possible that millions have already died at this point, if the underreporting has been as severe as some suspect it might be.
