This a fantastic analogy Nate, thank you! This will come on very handy as I attempt to have conversations now that we’re heading into our first holiday season with zero government mitigations 🤦🏻♀️
The usa has not had any holiday mitigations in any year. Ambulances drive around for hours looking for an open emergency room. People die in hallways and in er waiting rooms. Children and babies die by the hundreds from rsv,, flu and covid. Healthcare workers commit suicide. Hospitals have refrigerated trucks to store the bodies. Hospitals use labor from the prisons to move the bodies.
None of this is in the mainstream news…but you can find the information if you dare. It’s utterly depressing.
Theresa, I live in Canada, this is our first year without any mitigations in my area. The US is different. I am very well informed, you can see the list of substack newsletters I follow for Covid information, and I follow several Canadian infectious disease experts not on this platform as well. I still mask indoors and even outdoors where there are even small groups of people. Maybe don’t make assumptions.
This is a work of art! I've been meaning to write something on measles, picking a disease that some people may be more familiar with. The idea being that, left completely to its own devices, measles may cause population health damage of somewhat similar proportions? But I don't think people really remember these diseases very well. They think that, just bcz they were common, they were also pretty benign. We also don't (yet) fully know what COVID has in store in the long run, especially with ongoing reinfections.
But I would like to take issue with the statement that life expectancy in previous centuries was 45. It's a really common misconception, and an important one, as it has the potential to cast doubt on the point you're making about immunity, which is such an important one.
In Victorian England for example, life expectancy looks like it was 45 - until you strip out infant mortality. Life expectancy in the mid-Victorian period was actually not so markedly different from what it is today. Once infant mortality is stripped out, life expectancy at 5 years was 75 for men and 73 for women.
You omitted an important part of the immune system, and one that is currently under serious assault: the human brain. Part of our response to pathogenic microbes is to identify and mitigate against them. This response has gone awry in the SARS-2 pandemic. The confusion between commensal and pathogenic organisms has been the basis for some of the craziness.
This is fantastic, and I wouldn’t change a word or a punctuation mark in the piece itself.
But if this gets the attention I hope it will, it’s likely to be read by bunches of people who are smart but haven’t been paying close attention. So this is the first time they’ll have heard this argument. And they’ll be wondering why they should believe this Substack piece in the absence of other supporting evidence.
My suggestion: put some links to some other sources supporting this argument in a drier, more scientific way. (There are lots: in both standard media outlets and journals. I think that would help.)
This a fantastic analogy Nate, thank you! This will come on very handy as I attempt to have conversations now that we’re heading into our first holiday season with zero government mitigations 🤦🏻♀️
You're welcome! And good luck
To you as well, stay safe!!
The usa has not had any holiday mitigations in any year. Ambulances drive around for hours looking for an open emergency room. People die in hallways and in er waiting rooms. Children and babies die by the hundreds from rsv,, flu and covid. Healthcare workers commit suicide. Hospitals have refrigerated trucks to store the bodies. Hospitals use labor from the prisons to move the bodies.
None of this is in the mainstream news…but you can find the information if you dare. It’s utterly depressing.
Theresa, I live in Canada, this is our first year without any mitigations in my area. The US is different. I am very well informed, you can see the list of substack newsletters I follow for Covid information, and I follow several Canadian infectious disease experts not on this platform as well. I still mask indoors and even outdoors where there are even small groups of people. Maybe don’t make assumptions.
This is a work of art! I've been meaning to write something on measles, picking a disease that some people may be more familiar with. The idea being that, left completely to its own devices, measles may cause population health damage of somewhat similar proportions? But I don't think people really remember these diseases very well. They think that, just bcz they were common, they were also pretty benign. We also don't (yet) fully know what COVID has in store in the long run, especially with ongoing reinfections.
Thank you for this! A great reminder and a great image.
I'm a big fan of your research and thinking.
But I would like to take issue with the statement that life expectancy in previous centuries was 45. It's a really common misconception, and an important one, as it has the potential to cast doubt on the point you're making about immunity, which is such an important one.
In Victorian England for example, life expectancy looks like it was 45 - until you strip out infant mortality. Life expectancy in the mid-Victorian period was actually not so markedly different from what it is today. Once infant mortality is stripped out, life expectancy at 5 years was 75 for men and 73 for women.
Yes good point, I meant to say that child mortality dragged down the average, will put that in
I'd also like to point out that many cultures and societies had low infant mortality and long life expectancy before colonization.
100%
This is the best analogy I’ve read that might help some folks in my community who absolutely Do Not Get It, get it. Thx. 🙏
Great article, thanks for writing!
You omitted an important part of the immune system, and one that is currently under serious assault: the human brain. Part of our response to pathogenic microbes is to identify and mitigate against them. This response has gone awry in the SARS-2 pandemic. The confusion between commensal and pathogenic organisms has been the basis for some of the craziness.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810126/
This is fantastic, and I wouldn’t change a word or a punctuation mark in the piece itself.
But if this gets the attention I hope it will, it’s likely to be read by bunches of people who are smart but haven’t been paying close attention. So this is the first time they’ll have heard this argument. And they’ll be wondering why they should believe this Substack piece in the absence of other supporting evidence.
My suggestion: put some links to some other sources supporting this argument in a drier, more scientific way. (There are lots: in both standard media outlets and journals. I think that would help.)
Have added a couple, thanks!
Really useful. Thank you