Math
A “Facebook” friend of mine complained of COVID restrictions last night. She posted: “Only .0001% deaths…and we are getting ready to shut down again. This is more than ridiculous!!!” Here in Ohio this has been a recurring theme since last March. We had our fair share of protestors on the State House lawn, demanding their “freedom” not to wear masks. And small business owners, reasonably afraid of losing their livelihoods, have fought against restrictions.
So let’s start with where we are in Ohio right now. First of all, the “.0001%” number is bogus. How do you even get there? Take the entire population of the state, and divide it into the number of deaths. Mathematically, by the way – that’s “.01%”. But besides eighth grade math mistakes, what’s wrong? As a “snapshot”, most of the population hasn’t had COVID – yet. So since they haven’t been infected, they certainly aren’t dying from it. But we know that COVID infection is spreading at an alarming rate. Eventually most of the population may be exposed, and the “.01%” fatality rate will climb. So here is a snapshot of Ohio numbers that make more sense.
Ohio Numbers
There are 11 million people in the state. Almost 300,000 Ohioans have been diagnosed with COVID. That’s about 3%, and it’s growing quickly. Also there are likely many more folks that had COVID, but were asymptomatic and never diagnosed. Here’s the critical number though: out of those diagnosed, 22,265 had to be hospitalized. That’s 7%. So if you are diagnosed with COVID, right now there’s a 7% chance of ending up in a hospital for treatment here in Ohio.
There have been 5722 deaths from COVID here in Ohio. Most of those who died were hospitalized – which means that there’s a 25% chance that if you need to be hospitalized for COVID, you might not make it. That’s one in four.
And here’s the final, scary numbers. There were 40,000 new cases of COVID diagnosed in Ohio – last week! We are averaging 199 new hospitalized patients each day. The rate of infection, how many people are diagnosed a week, is increasing quickly. Sure, part of that number is that from testing more people – and we ought to be testing a whole lot more people so we have a “real” percentage of the infection in our population (Ohio Coronavirus.org).
Waiting List
But the number that should worry Ohioans is the number of folks in the hospital. We can argue about “rates” of infection and testing, but there is no denying the fact that our hospitals are being crushed by COVID. The Cleveland Clinic postponed elective surgeries for the foreseeable future. Emergency departments in the Columbus metro area were so slammed last Friday, that one Level I Trauma Center (Level I is the most able to handle major cases) redirected ambulances away from their unit, and another Level II Center was unable to accept any new patients at all. Think of that for a moment – ambulances are redirected to Emergency Departments farther away – and if you drive yourself to the hospital – they don’t let you in.
So let’s not fool ourselves with “bad” math. We were warned back in March: if we don’t control the rate of infection, we will lose control of our hospitals. We will not be able to treat both COVID patients, and the folks with all of the other problems that put them in the hospital in the first place. People will die, who didn’t have to die.
Who Lives
We dodged that bullet in March by shutting down, wearing masks, and social distancing. But that was a long, long time ago. Now shutting down, masks, and social distancing are “political” issues rather than medical ones. We even had a Supreme Court Justice make “ex parte” statements (outside of a court case) about the Constitutionality of restrictions. He’s worried that folks can’t practice their religion by going to church.
We should be worried about everyone in church getting COVID. We should be worried about the elderly, often regular churchgoers, getting COVID and dying. Not because they “had” to die, and not because it was “their time”. Dying because some church leaders willfully ignored science and brought them together. Benjamin Franklin famously quoted, “God helps those who help themselves”. Justice Alito and Ohioans need to help themselves and protect folks.
There is “light at the end of the tunnel”. Vaccines are literally around the corner. Sometime between now and June, it’s likely that most of the population could be vaccinated, and the COVID pandemic controlled (not over). We can then return to many of the things that we call “regular life”.
But in the meantime – we decide how many will die. If we control the disease: wearing masks, social distance, and, if necessary, shutdown for a few weeks to regain control, we can save many lives. If we don’t, then we betray those who are vulnerable and kill them. It’s not political – it’s simple math and science.
