Good morning,
I had thought I had written my last essay on Covid-19 some weeks back, but it seems that another is warranted as the pandemic moves into its most dangerous phase.
If ever there was a time that those who are most vulnerable need to be careful, this is that time. For the next 3 months, the pandemic will reach its apogee in the United States, because of our failure to develop a national approach to address the problem. Sadly, many more people will die. But you already know this, so my offering today is not to dwell on those things, but to convey some information that might be helpful.
First, with all the talk of vaccines—which is very positive—it is important to remember that it will take months for these vaccines to have a significant effect on the explosion of cases. In light of that fact, there is another important fact to keep in mind—more than 60 million people in the U.S. have already been vaccinated. Anyone who has already been infected is very, very likely to be immune, and more and more evidence suggests that they will have immunity for a significant period of time.
The 60 million figure comes from this respected web site:
https://covid19-projections.com
This researcher’s estimate is that there were 54.9 million cases on Nov. 26, and since there are about 600,000 new cases every day now in the U.S., the total on Dec. 12 is over 60 million. This means that for every case that has been officially recorded, there have been 3.75 cases that were not found by an official test. In the early days of the pandemic, that number was estimated to be 10 to 1, but today, much wider testing has brough the number down to less than 3 to 1.
Of course, no one knows for sure how long immunity will last, but the last study I saw suggests it could be several years:
“How long might immunity to the coronavirus last? Years, maybe even decades, according to a new study—the most hopeful answer yet to a question that has shadowed plans for widespread vaccination. Eight months after infection, most people who have recovered still have enough immune cells to fend off the virus and prevent illness, the new data show. A slow rate of decline in the short term suggests, happily, that these cells may persist in the body for a very, very long time to come.” https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.15.383323v1
I have also heard a good deal of talk about the danger of reinfection, but as of mid-October, there were only 5 cases of known reinfection in the world. And all those have extenuating circumstances. It is therefore clear that if you have been infected with Covid-19, you are safe for at least a year or two, and recent information suggests it could be much longer.
This is very important because, at the current rate of new infections, by the end of March the total number of people infected in the U.S. will be approaching 120 million, and by the end of June it could be 150 million, or 45% of the population
This number of infections is a terrible tragedy, and the death toll in its wake a horrible reminder of our failure. But since it is our reality, we must use this information to help us move into the future. And one critical use that could be made of it is that the precious resource of the new vaccines should be directed to those who have not yet been infected. To accomplish this goal, we should begin a free national campaign to offer a test to anyone who will take it to see who is a part of the 60 million who are now safe.
And right now, you and I can immediately participate. Kroger is now offering an antibody test at most of its locations. It costs $25 dollars and takes only 15 minutes. Many other testing facilities offer it as well. The test is not 100% accurate, but if you test positive there is a very high chance that you have had Covid-19 sometime since the pandemic began. There is also a very, very high chance you will not get it again in the next year, and there is a very, very, very high chance you will not infect anyone else. Tell everyone you know who might have been infected to get this test! It would be extremely valuable for them to know as they go about their lives.
It is important to note here that the antibody test is totally different from most of the current testing that is now going on. Most of those tests are viral tests, and they tell you if you are currently infected and if you are now infectious to others. If, however, you were infected more than 2 weeks ago, a viral test will show nothing. But if you were infected months ago, an antibody test will tell you that you were infected sometime in the past. Crucially, this tells you that you are extremely unlikely to get Covid again and equally unlikely to infect anyone else. People who have been infected are safe for the non-infected to be around. Wouldn’t it be enormously valuable for all those people who have immunity now to know that they have it?
If we knew this information about the 60 million people who have already been infected, and the 120 million who will have been infected by April, it would help us enormously in using the scare resource of the vaccines that become available for those who really need them. And it would help those who have been infected begin to live more active lives. If we started organizing our lives with this information in mind, we could begin to return to a more normal way of life.
Just think, if we could use the 30 to 40 million doses of the vaccines that do become available in the next few months for those who have not been infected, we would rapidly approach enough immunity to break the back of this pandemic, and we could begin to look forward to a time that it was not ruling our lives.
Thus, on a national level, while we are preparing to vaccinate millions of people over the next few months, we should be undertaking a massive effort to find those people who have already been infected. They do not need the vaccine now. This would speed up the process dramatically—if we only had that information. And we could have it. The tests are available. All we need is the national will, and for someone to step forward to pay for the costs—costs that are miniscule compared to the trillions that have already been spent in various ways in this country to fight Covid and especially to mitigate its effects. In my view, the federal government should have been paying for all tests all along, and certainly should now.
In the meantime, as you try to protect yourself, here is a good way to think about doing so:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/coronavirus-swiss-cheese-infection-mackay.html
Finally, we all need to be thinking about the future in terms of the terrible toll the virus, and our responses to it, have had on our society, and the ways we can begin to go about healing ourselves and our country. Here are a few articles to help with this thinking and planning process:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/opinion/covid-lockdown-isolation.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/tis-the-season-for-shame-and-judgment/617335/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/coronavirus-mental-health.html
To end on a more inspiring note, here is an old YouTube video that I have watched numerous times, with images from a person who knew suffering and found a way to look beyond it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk
May you be well,
and find a measure of peace in this turbulent time,
David