Health HISTORY

[Foiled Again]

Were we healthier, or did the all but the toughest ones just get winnowed out early?
In colonial times the average lifespan of women was 37 years. The three leading causes of death were hearth burns, childbirth, and postpartum infections. Benjamin Franklin's Stove reduced cooking burns... not washing clothes (greasy aprons and dresses esp) more than once or twice a year did more - when that changed in the 1830's as the washboard and hand cranked wringer became common.
Child bed fever and hundreds of other infections virtually disappeared once doctors understood germs and started washing their hands between examining each patient. Florence Nightengale cut the death toll in half during the Crimean war when her nurses scrubbed everything and everyone in the hospital... (Victoria was queen).
I have always liked walking in old cemetaries. Any time before 1900 you will find common tragedies - five, six or even more tiny stones of children who all died of within days of each other from scarlet fever, smallpox, a fever (flu, typhus, etc.), milk sick (possibly TB), pneumonia or fever (malaria, measles, chicken pox, etc.). Burns, tetanus, appendicitis were lethal and falls, accidents and broken bones that are no big deal today killed many children too.
My maternal grandmother had 7 children and only lost one. Three survived scarlet fever, 2 with complications, but all of hers were born after 1900.
Look up when penicillin and insulin were invented and of course the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. My brother and I got the Salk shots in school even though everyone was sure an oral dose was coming in a year or two. NOBODY refused to get those shots. I saw a few parents come in and hold their panicked kids down by main force. (My brother and I were tough little beggars. As a girl, I always got put first in line and he was next, to try to shame the bigger kids into a show of bravery. In high school as a "future nurse" who went with the school nurses to assist, I learned that the fearful children (pukers, fainters, screamers and fighters) were put last and taken outside to the bus where the FNA girls held them still - or down!) Fear? Highly contageous!

[batman]

Thank you for this Excellent post.

That is what it all comes down to, Fear. Fear, which leads to panic.
Most of the world has caught it. I have it, you have it, we all have it with us all the time. It is our minds survival mode.

In the face of dire consequences why do some people stand out as courageous? It is not because they do not fear. They overcome there fear and carry on.

I will always remember the words and actions of an American, Todd Beamer, 09/11/2001 flight 93, "LETS ROLL" the most courageous words of our day.

Have courage.

-Dennis

[Lily&Me]

Very good, both of you.

I believe that a big part of this event we are experiencing collectively is that it is something we have never experienced before.

Maybe some still alive have memories of the flu pandemic over 100 years ago, but for 99.9% of us this is a first.

Listen to our experts, our Governors and local officials, be personally responsible and follow their guidelines.

Get up every day, put one foot ahead of the other, do your part and one day this will all be in our rear view window.

Stay safe,

Maggie

[Belbein]

It is the first time true pandemic in my lifetime and in the USA, but it's not new. There have been pandemics before, all in recorded history. It may be that the difference now is that the world is such a crowded place. Where there might have been 3 people within the range of a sneeze in 1795, now there are dozens of hundreds And where each of us might have interacted with a dozen people in a week back then, now it's hundreds in a day. Of course we also have greater blanket reporting: just 100 years ago we wouldn't have heard about a plague in China.

But history is eloquent on this subject. The pandemics and potential pandemics are always with us. And it is that invariable truth that makes the failure to take due care a sign of the utter negligence of the executive and legislative branches of government.

[Bigskyrider8]

It's a flashback time for me.
I was in the Peace Corps in Africa in Morocco and the Congo in the late 80's.
Morocco was an amazing place, fantastic warm lovely people, great food and a low health risk. I did contract giardia, a nasty little parasite that made me drop from 200lbs down to 175.....in two weeks.
The Congo was a whole different story, living in Bukavu was a whole new challenge, the main village area had 30K people with no one over 30 years old.
You can guess why, Malaria, Schistosomiasis, giardia.....well you get the idea.

Lately, my flashbacks to that time come at night in dreams. When I came back to the U.S. I was so glad to return...be back where I felt what I ate, drank or the air I was breathing wouldn't kill me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that what is happening now is real, but it's something a countless number of people around the world live with daily, It's new to us.
I pray that it will pass quickly and in the meantime, that we can defeat our fear and be kind to one another, love each other. My time in Africa, was the single most defining time in my life.

[Daquenzer]

In the coming weeks we are going to begin opening up the economy. There is one thing that has clearly occurred in this past few months. We have made people afraid of other people as we see each person we meet as a potential carrier of the virus. So what have we learned:
1) The virus is more deadly for people that are older (60+ some say 70+) with underlying problems; the vast majority (94%) hospitalized had either high blood pressure, diabetes, or obese. And 80% had more than one of those underlying conditions. What does this mean? Well it means that we can increase our probability of survival by losing weight to a more normal weight, getting our blood pressure under control, eating a healthier diet, and getting more exercise.
2) The vast majority of younger healthy people who get this virus will do just fine. This is not to say none will die or be hospitalized, but the numbers are very very low.
3) Far more people have gotten this virus than has been recorded. In fact the numbers are pretty staggering. New York did an antibody test that showed 10x’s more people got this virus than were recorded. Based upon this New York had 2.7 million or more cases. This is significant because we now have some idea of the actual death rate. It is far far less than originally thought. Up to just a few months ago we were watching Italy, Spain, etc and we were seeing supposed death rates of 3 to 4%. And that is really high. But in reality the death rate may be more like .1%. The question is, “Would we have closed down the country for a death rate of .1%?” I am not making light of the people that have died. I’m bringing this up because whenever we do something we make judgments based upon risk assessment.

Going forward we are going to make judgments based upon risk assessment. Yet many of our perceived risk assessments are often irrational. By irrational I mean they don’t square with reality. Here’s a case in point. We know that one in four people will die from heart disease. We also know that obesity which is caused by our diet and lack of exercise is a leading factor in heart disease. Yet 39.6% of people in the country are classified as obese despite the fact that we have a 25% chance of death from heart disease with obesity a leading contributor. You would think if people are making rational risk assessments they would do everything they could to live at a healthy weight and get exercise. Yet that’s not a reality. Why? Well it sort of catches up to us over time, and we don’t think in the long term. We would rather have the short-term pleasure of eating, and we kind of hope we won’t be in the 1 in 4 that dies. But really we have become use to the risk.

Let’s look at another risk we do regularly. The risk of death in a car accident goes up considerably the faster one drives. Some 40,000 people die on our highways every year. We know that we could probably eliminate those deaths if everyone drove 5 mph. Instead we continue to drive very fast, despite the fact we have a 1 in 114 chance in our lifetime of death in a car crash. That is higher than death from COVID 19. Yet we continue to drive, drive fast, and some even drive after drinking or distracted. We should be afraid of driving. Yet we do it every day. Why? We have become use to the risk.

I could go on and on and on how we live with risk every single day. Why? We know that life is about taking risk or we can’t really live. The more we believe the risk is worth it, the more we will choose to endure it. That’s why people came across the ocean on wooden ships to our country. Talk about risk!! But the perceived benefit was greater than the risk.

So where does this leave us with regard to COVID 19? If the risk of death by COVID 19 is say .1% for the majority of people in the U.S. then why are we acting like it is so high? We have stopped being rational. We have perceived that death by COVID 19 is a risk greater than what it really is.

We cannot live as though COVID 19 is a disease that’s going to kill us all. It isn’t. That is irrational. And going forward if we are going to live life we can choose to do so rationally or irrationally. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take precautions. We should take precautions all the time when appropriate. But what I see is irrational fear. If you are in the category of being older, obese, high blood pressure, and have diabetes (combination thereof) you will need to be more careful. But shutting down our entire society is irrational, and putting 26 million people out of work is irrational. And I suggest to you had we known that the probability of death by COVID 19 was .1% we would have never shut down like we did. Instead we would have proceeded by protecting the most vulnerable, practice appropriate social distancing, and quarantining those who are sick. But shutting down the economy would not have been a rational approach.

One more thing. We will never have zero cases of COVID 19. Most are saying this will ebb and flow much like the flu. It will become less spreadable as we create a herd immunity or a vaccine is developed. Yet isn’t it interesting that to this day many people do not get a flu vaccine despite the fact it kills thousands every year. Why? We have gotten use to the risk. We have adapted. Bottom line, we are going to need to adapt and get use to this new risk just as we live with a myriad of risks every single day. And we will. It will just take time.

Finally, the absurdity of our policy makers is stunning. The policy is that one must have a declining rate of infections over a 14 day period to open in Phase 1. Yet with the increase in testing capabilities we are finding more cases. Does anyone find the self-defeating reality of this? What they should be doing is base reopening on the number of hospitalizations and deaths. Based upon our present policy we may never open until there is a vaccine.

[Boxite]

The opinions expressed are only that...opinions....and they are often based upon misinformation. I recommend Bilbein that you read “The Great Influenza” by John M. Barry regarding the 1918 Pandemic, which will refute your comments quite handily.
Does anyone know why it was called the “Spanish Flu”?
It was called that because the rest of Europe and the U.S. was involved in WW-I and practiced censorship and secrecy. Authorities did not allow newspapers to publish death statistics because it would allow the enemy access to sensitive knowlege. Spain was not INVOLVED in the fighting and had no censorship of public information, so newspapers and public officials openly discussed the pandemic... therefore popular opinion thought it originated in Spain.
Guess where it actually originated? Kansas. Fort Riley Kansas.
So.... there is a basis for misinformation being distributed in China these days that it this current pandemic originated with U.S. soldiers.

The proposition that today we are more crowded than in 1795 and therefore is why the epidemic is so rapidly spreading today is due to population-growth is pure speculation. Black Death was very much in a crowded London. And it spread rapidly thru medieval Europe. It likely arrived on a ship in the Genoa harbor recently arrived from the far East.

The comments regarding traffic accidents by Daquenzer overlook the fact that regardless... we still wear seatbelts and drive defensively around other crazies on the street. I.E.: the vast majority of us obey the laws, drive safely and do not disregard safe driving habits simply because accidents occur.... We slow down and avoid accident sites and back away from those whom we observe driving drunk, fast, etc. The implication Daquenzer appears to make is that we should all just relax and let things happen and run their course .... is irresponsible (if that is what iis meant.)

In the 1940-1950’s public schools and health authorities taught “Public Health” and “Citizenship in the Community”... subjects with which few millennials have any familiarity and which public and private schools no longer teach.

This does not mean we should buy the idiocy being promoted by the nut-case in Austin that recommends “older” people should go get exposed, die, and get out of the way... or that we should follow our leader’s advice and inject ourselves with Lysol or Bleach and “get back to work” to “Open the Economy”.

Be sensible. After 911 we will never return to flying wearing our Sunday Best and walking out on the tarmac to get on the DC-3 airliners and be served hot meals on the flight.

No, we will forever remove our shoes, pass thru security, and be patted down.

“Normal” is a thing of the past.

We will now socially-distance....wear face-masks... wash hands.... and not shake hands.
It is no longer “1984”(George Orwell). Get over it.

[lsbrodsky]

Daquenzer, you must be my evil twin. Everything you said above, I have said to my family in the last two weeks. How many of us are there out there? Certainly not the people we elected to various state and federal positions.
Larry

[Lily&Me]

I agree with a lot of what has been said here, but my reading about the what and the how of this virus tells me there is still so much that we don’t know about how it spreads, affects the body and stays in the body once one believes themselves “well”.

It seems the virus can take hold of some of all ages with amazing ferocity, and causes a large number of victims to become so ill they need to be put on ventilators, from which 80-90% don’t successfully come off.

The ability of our healthcare system to handle uncommon masses of critically ill patients has been a concern from the beginning, is still a concern and will remain so with this particular virus.

This article about blood clotting, others about extreme hypoxia, kidney and other organ failure, one yesterday about the virus being found in a patients eyes after it was no longer present in her nose...all from reputable sources, not the dark web...inform me that this is a virus of a different sort, more devastating to many and with higher lethality.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...oung-patients/

I don’t want me or mine to get this.

I don’t understand those who want to liken it to the common flu, or to second guess well respected epidemiologists as to how this virus and the people should be handled.

Not my area of expertise, I intend to follow leaders whose opinions and recommendations I have come to trust.

Maggie

[Landshark]

I'm with you, Maggie: we just don't know enough about this particular bug to be cavalier about what our science/medical specialists are recommending.

Admittedly, I am retired (thus income is somewhat "guaranteed" by SS and pensions) so I am not worried about getting back to a job and a paycheck. But being in the vulnerable demographic, I am worried about the spread of this plague since it could wipe me out in a short time.

I think people in different stages of life or physical condition are going to have very different opinions on where to go from here and how to get our economy on the move again.

But surely we are smart enough to figure out ways to accommodate most of these various opinions? For me, vulnerable, I plan to continue to self-isolate indefinitely or until a reliable vaccine shows up, use a mask when out in stores, not attend church except through live-streaming, and camp in my driveway. Maybe other older folks should do likewise.

Other (younger? healthier?) folks can go back to work and earning their living. Where at all possible, maybe public schools and universities can continue distance learning? Occupations that require close physical contact (hairdressers? restaurant wait staff?) can wear masks and wash hands often?

I think Americans can figure this out and neither crash our economy nor spread this plague farther and faster.

Vivian

[Belbein]

It's not that I disagree with most of y'all. It's that I think you're only thinking one step down the road. Sure, those of us who are a little older and have some preexisting conditions are going to be much more cautious than the young, presumably healthy people. But as the young, presumably healthy people all flood back into the "normal" life, they're going to spark another continuous series of waves of infections. And that means that those of us who are older, have some preexisting conditions, and are more cautious, are going to be frozen out of the ERs and ICUs because they're going to be filled with the previously young, previously presumed healthy who didn't take precautions. How many of us will die waiting for a bed or a doctor when the beds and doctors are occupied by the young, healthy idiots who decided that they were bulletproof? And how many of us will die because our young, presumably healthy, risk-loving children and grandchildren will bring the virus to us as a Thanksgiving/Xmas/Easter/July 4th BBQ gift?

[JonDNC]

Reality is this is worse than the normal flu strains and not the end of the world. For example Ebola has a 90% death rate give or take, if it was as contagious as Covid it would have been TEOTWAWKI.

Reality is we need to have the economy restart in some fashion, not an On/Off switch. If we don’t there may not be one and life will not be ever semi normal again.

Life will be different till a vaccine is developed and distributed. Even then we’ll probably still see minor outbreaks as not everyone will get or take the vaccine.

We’ll just have to deal with it.

[Landshark]

I just watched Maggie's WAPO video for the first time: that is scary as all get-out! And not just for us oldies, it was the younger people having strokes and clots and other age-inappropriate health issues due to COVID-19.

This is much worse than I had thought.

Watch that video.

Vivian

[Landshark]

Belbein,

You are right: it will be the children and grandchildren, who think they are bullet-proof, who bring it to us oldies.

That's why we oldies are going to have to be very vigilant, and basically isolate ourselves until a vaccine is available. The country's economy can't be kept still to protect us, we have to take responsibility for our own safety and self-isolate, unpleasant as it may be to not allow visits from children and grandchildren.

Especially after watching Maggie's video, this is a whole new ballgame: I'm staying home except for the grocery store until I have been vaccinated for this monster virus. Thus: no church (live-streaming only), no visiting, no camping (unless in my driveway!), no-nothing until vaccination.

If we can bring ourselves to do this, we can survive, IMHO. And maybe this is a new survival-of-the-fittest test?

Vivian

[Lily&Me]

Dr. Birx said today she expects social distancing to continue at least thru the summer.

What that will mean for camping, I’m not sure, but I anticipate we will find a new way to do safely a lot of old things that just can’t be the same any longer.

I also think some things will never be the same, now that we’ve had this experience.

Maggie

[aftermath]

This is like reading a post about WD hitches. Opinions fly with little actual facts to back them up. People post as though they are engineers. Now people come across as doctors. Hey, you can inject cleaning agents and cure this thing! One side says this is just a hoax and that your are being fearful if you are social distancing. The other side says we need to get our own hazmat suits and never leave home. Of course if you listen to the "leadership" in this nation, you really don't get anything very helpful.


I have opinions too. Here are some of mine. I am concerned because this is something that we have never encountered before, at least in my lifetime. It is extremely contagious which is why we are where we are. Yes, it kills and it seems to be hitting all age categories although not equally. Those who survive might indeed have some lasting health issues that they might have to deal with later.



I also agree with the notion that there are MANY more infected people out there than we have identified. Why? Well our testing system is weak and not well planned. I believe (my opinion) that the death rate is much smaller than published because of the lack of real data. Does this make it less important? No, because the larger numbers support the notion that this is a very easily spread disease. Yes, a pandemic.


We do need to reopen business but we really need to be careful in doing so. This will be the hard part. I am glad that we have Georgia playing the role of lab rat for the rest of us. I am going to be watching the death rate in this state, one that continues to register more and more cases and yet has opened up the entire state for business as usual. Again, testing will show more cases so Georgia's increase in numbers should not be misinterpreted. The death rate might tell another story.


I am not one to dismiss a few deaths as a part of the story. How many are you willing to accept in your town? 10?, 100? 1000? This will be a very difficult time for all of us. No one really knows the real end of this thing. When people tell you what to do, and how it will all work out, you might want to walk away. They don't know.

[DMP]

Originally Posted by aftermath

This is like reading a post about WD hitches. Opinions fly with little actual facts to back them up. People post as though they are engineers. Now people come across as doctors. Hey, you can inject cleaning agents and cure this thing! One side says this is just a hoax and that your are being fearful if you are social distancing. The other side says we need to get our own hazmat suits and never leave home. Of course if you listen to the "leadership" in this nation, you really don't get anything very helpful.


I have opinions too. Here are some of mine. I am concerned because this is something that we have never encountered before, at least in my lifetime. It is extremely contagious which is why we are where we are. Yes, it kills and it seems to be hitting all age categories although not equally. Those who survive might indeed have some lasting health issues that they might have to deal with later.



I also agree with the notion that there are MANY more infected people out there than we have identified. Why? Well our testing system is weak and not well planned. I believe (my opinion) that the death rate is much smaller than published because of the lack of real data. Does this make it less important? No, because the larger numbers support the notion that this is a very easily spread disease. Yes, a pandemic.


We do need to reopen business but we really need to be careful in doing so. This will be the hard part. I am glad that we have Georgia playing the role of lab rat for the rest of us. I am going to be watching the death rate in this state, one that continues to register more and more cases and yet has opened up the entire state for business as usual. Again, testing will show more cases so Georgia's increase in numbers should not be misinterpreted. The death rate might tell another story.


I am not one to dismiss a few deaths as a part of the story. How many are you willing to accept in your town? 10?, 100? 1000? This will be a very difficult time for all of us. No one really knows the real end of this thing. When people tell you what to do, and how it will all work out, you might want to walk away. They don't know.

The following is MY opinion only!
Yes, I agree with Aftermath. There are no so-called experts in this phenomenon because we have never experienced it before. No doctor, politician, broadcaster, or individual is an expert. There are no scientific studies to speak of yet. The people I listen to will admit just that! We, as a population, demand answers, statistics, tests right NOW! The experts are the ones in the labs studying this virus and taking sequential steps to gain knowledge. That’s it.
As a resident of Florida and RN in a hospital, I follow precautions (and always have) for my protection and that of my patients. That is just common sense to me. I also stay connected to the governor’s Covid press conferences and think he is handling this situation well. I’m sure your states have similar responses to this ongoing situation.
A link to Florida’s:https://thefloridachannel.org/?s=Covid

[Landshark]

If there is an upside to this pandemic, it is all the incredible communication technology we have now, so that if we must continue to isolate physically, that doesn't mean that we don't communicate with anyone at all.

In 1918, they couldn't live-stream church services, you couldn't skype or Zoom to get family together or have business meetings, you couldn't phone/text/email friends and family, you couldn't order curb delivery of meals, groceries, hardware to work on house or Airstream, you didn't have limitless entertainment or news updates via TV, radio, Youtube, Netflix, and on and on.

So as bad as this is, we have a lot going for us to keep us sane, if not blazing happy. I'll try not to complain so much and be more upbeat.

Vivian