CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND THE UPCOMING AMERICAN ELECTIONS
WHY PANDEMIC INDUCED PUBLIC HEALTH CRISES SHOULDN’T BE POLITICIZED
WHY ALL CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS ARE NOT ALIKE
While being sheltered in my home, feeling anxious and worried and seeing the death toll rise drastically across the globe, surpassing hundreds of thousands and reaching 40,000 in the USA alone, makes me feel very sad and depressed.
As if this psychological suffering is not enough, seeing the President of the United States ignore the warnings and downplay the risk of this pandemic, equating this to a ”tiny flu,”until significant time is lost. Then saying, “I knew it was a pandemic before anybody else did; this is more than a pandemic, it is World War III against an invisible enemy.” This mindset makes me even more worried.
If this is World War III, then why don’t we have a united front? Why is every country left alone?
If America, the richest country in the world, is facing severe shortages of testing kits, personal protective equipment for the frontline soldiers (doctors, nurses, health care workers) and not enough ventilators for the sick, what are poor countries going to do?
It appears that the President of the United States is more concerned about upcoming elections than the devastating COVID-19 pandemic on human life. He is using the pulpit of daily press briefings to campaign for his reelection. He denies any responsibility for the mess we are in, by boasting about his accomplishments and by blaming the opposition party, the WHO and the Chinese Government for the pandemic. He acts like daily press briefing are his reality TV show. He politicizes everything, including the fact that the pandemic caused severe public health crises. He is the master of creating conflict. The more conflict he creates, the more attention he gathers and attention is the power to get reelected. Unfortunately there is nobody left in his cabinet with a spine who could question his folly.
It is a sign of bad governance when devastating public health crises are politized, because pandemics become deadlier. Lives are on the line, there is no time to waste for anything else but to save lives.
Politics are not my cup of tea. I rather talk about COVID-19 infections. When we look at these infections more closely, we see that all COVID-19 exposures are not alike. Some could get infected without having any symptoms. 80% of infected persons have only mild to moderate nonspecific symptoms like fever, sore throat, dry cough, muscle aches and pains which are similar to the common cold, flu or an allergic reaction and they recover from it. Males are more prone to infection than females. Any age group could get infected. Mortality rate is higher among middle age and elderly age groups especially those with existing chronic health problems and obesity. Yet, we see survivals among elder patients and we see death among children and youngsters.
If aging is a vulnerability factor, because with aging our immune system get weaker, then the very young shouldn’t die and very old shouldn’t survive. Then there must be some other factors at work.
Scientific studies on lab animals and human volunteers with other harmless viruses have shown that administered a viral dose (viral load) determines the severity of illness. If they are given a low dose of virus, nothing happens or they all recover from a mild viral disease. But if they are given a high viral load, they all get very sick.
Therefore all COVID –19 exposures are not the same because the viral loads are not the same. Long lasting contact with sick people like doctors and nurses in hospitals, crowded places like schools, sporting events, factories, political rallies, long travels (air, bus, train) are much more dangerous than short social contacts, or catching the virus from a surface or in the air. Nevertheless, recommended personal protective measures and frequent hand washing should remain in place until a vaccine is discovered to control the infection.
