COVID-19 Deaths in Perspective: 1 death also = 35 others permanently disabled

I was listening to the Thom Hartmann Podcast from July 13th, and somehow it really put a lot of what scares me about COVID-19 into perspective.

Thom Hartmann was rebutting the idiots on Fox News and elsewhere who were basically saying “What’s the big deal? If only 1% die from getting coronavirus, well, it is what it is and let’s move on. Open the economy!” In his rebuttal, Thom made the point that, pre-pandemic, there were approximately 10,000 airplanes in the sky on any given day.

If you knew that out of those 10,000 airplanes, each day, 100 of them were going to fall out of the sky . . . if EVERY SINGLE DAY there were 100 airplanes falling out of the sky, crashing to the ground, and killing everyone on board—not just once, but every single day—would you EVER get in an airplane again? And That’s just one percent. In other words, one percent is not an insignificant statistic.

After the airplane analogy, Thom Hartmann referenced a writer, Franklin Veaux, and a shocking yet thoroughly documented and accurate assessment of what a 1% COVID-19 mortality rate really tells us.

For every one person who dies of COVID-19:
19 require hospitalization
18 will have permanent heart damage for the rest of their lives
10 will have permanent lung damage for the rest of their lives
3 will have strokes that affect them for the rest of their lives
2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of coordination
2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function

[BTW, I saw a report on a German study today that found permanent significant heart damage in nearly 70% of COVID-19 survivors, not just 18%.]

So, back to Thom Hartmann’s airplane analogy. Sure, at one percent, only 100 out of 10,000 planes crash every single day, but in addition to that, two hundred more planes lose oxygen in-flight giving all passengers on board dementia and another 200 planes where everyone gets physical neurological damage. And 300 airplanes where everyone has a stroke, AND a thousand airplanes where everybody has permanent lung damage. And EIGHTEEN HUNDRED planes where everybody has heart damage for the rest of their lives. Would you still get on an airplane?!? 10,000 planes in the sky each day, 100 crashing every day, 3,500 planes PER DAY causing serious life-long debilitation. Would you get on any airplane if those were the flight statistics?

Would you do ANYTHING that has zero benefit to anyone (oh, sorry, I suppose drug manufacturers are going to benefit from coronavirus, but who cares about drug companies making more money?) and a THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT probability of destroying your life with serious permanent disability?

Trust me, 35% is a HUGE probability, and living with a painful permanent disability truly sucks. Knowing that I have some 40-60 years of constant pain and permanent disability ahead of me is so daunting that I go to extreme lengths to avoid thinking about it. My chance of getting cancer at my age was something like .0001% and the probability of stage 4 neuropathy was a tiny fraction of that. Seriously, 35% is HUGE.

So, what does a 1% COVID-19 mortality rate really mean? 1% of our 332,000,000 population means:
3.2 million people DEAD
62 million people hospitalized
59 million people with permanent heart damage
32 million people with permanent lung damage
9.8 million people with strokes
6.5 million people with muscular weakness
6.5 million people with dementia/loss of cognitive function

In other words, if every American got COVID-19 and 1% of them died of COVID-19, that’s 3.2 million Americans dead AND 175.8 million with life-long debilitation. That’s more than half of our total population. What effect do you think THAT would have on our economy?!? Yes, assuming every single American will catch the coronavirus is surely an exaggeration. Surely something will happen (vaccine? massive mask-wearing?) before every single American catches it. But assuming a 1% mortality rate is probably overly conservative as well given that the current case fatality rate in America is more tha 4% and the resolved mortality rate is actually nearly 7%. A 7% resolved mortality rate suggests that if every American contracted COVID-19, there would be some 22 million dead Americans stinking up the continent. So, let’s get back to practical, fathomable numbers.

As of yesterday, more than 150,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, at least officially. That means:
2.7 million have permanent heart damage
1.5 million have permanent lung damage
450,000 have had strokes
300,000 have physical neurological damage
300,000 have cognitive neurological damage

So, 150,000 dead = 5.25 million permanent damaged/disabled.

And it’s not even August yet.


Data sources/references per Franklin Veaux: https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-disease-with-1-mortality-shut-down-the-United-States/answer/Franklin-Veaux