Please read the important disclaimer at the following link before proceeding further on this page. The administrator of this forum is not a doctor nor licensed or experienced in any aspect of the health care industry.
https://www.covid-19forum.org/index.php?topic=227.0How big of a problem is COVID to begin with?
Essential Facts About Covid-19
By James D. Agresti
December 10, 2020
Updated 12/11/20
https://www.justfacts.com/news_covid-19_essential_factsBest read at link that is embellished with links. Here's an excerpt:
"There are, however, mortal dangers in overreacting because measures to limit the spread of C-19 have tangible impacts that can cost multitudes of lives. Numerous facts have shown that lockdowns, panic, and other responses to the pandemic have done just that. A small sampling of these include the following:
The authors of a July 2020 paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association found:
There is “an alarming trend across the U.S., where community members experiencing a health emergency are staying home—a decision that can have long-term, and sometimes fatal, consequences.”
In the five states that had the most Covid-19 deaths in March and April, heart disease deaths were 89% above normal, and diabetes deaths were 96% above normal.
“New York City’s death rates alone rose a staggering 398% from heart disease and 356% from diabetes.”
A scientific survey commissioned by the American College of Emergency Physicians in April 2020 found that 29% of adults have “actively delayed or avoided seeking medical care due to concerns about contracting” C-19.
A California-based ABC News station reported in May:
“Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the Covid-19 virus.”
Mike deBoisblanc, head of the trauma unit at the hospital stated that he’s “seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks,” and “mental health is suffering so much” that he says “it is time to end the shelter-in-place order.”
A scientific survey conducted by the CDC in July 2020 found that about 32% of U.S. adults had “symptoms of anxiety disorder” as compared to 8% around the same time last year. The perils of this are underscored by a 2015 meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry, which found that the overall risk of death among people with anxiety is 43% higher than the general population.
A study published by the American Medical Association in September 2020 found that 27.8% of U.S. adults had symptoms of depression during the C-19 pandemic as compared to 8.5% before the pandemic. The same 2015 meta-analysis found that depression is associated with a 71% higher risk of death.
An article published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimated that “more than 20 million jobs” were “swept away” in the early months of the C-19 pandemic. The potential repercussions of this are highlighted by a 2011 meta-analysis in the journal Social Science & Medicine about mortality, “psychosocial stress,” and job losses. It found that “unemployment is associated with a 63% higher risk of mortality in studies controlling for covariates.”
A scientific survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in late April found that 55% of U.S. workers “have lost their jobs or had a reduction in hours or pay as a result of” reactions to C-19. Regardless of whether these losses are brief or sustained, the same 2011 meta-analysis found that the correlation between unemployment and death “is significant in both the short and long term,” lending “some support to the hypothesis and previous findings that both the stress and the negative lifestyle effects associated with the onset of unemployment tend to persist even after a person has regained a job.”
Four federal bills passed to address the pandemic and buffer the economic fallouts of state-imposed shutdowns cost about $2.5 trillion, or an average of $19,000 for every household in the nation. This has played a key role in driving the national debt to the highest portion of the U.S. economy in the nation’s history. A broad range of facts show that this can have serious negative consequences, including lower wages, weak economic growth, increased inflation, higher taxes, reduced government benefits, or combinations of such results. These, in turn, impair people’s quality of life and can reduce their life expectancy.
A study published by the journal European Psychiatry in May 2020 found that:
governments failed to model the “increased short-term and long-term mortality” caused by the mental health impacts of Covid-19 mitigation strategies like social distancing and lockdowns.
these actions increased “suicide, depression, alcohol use disorder, childhood trauma due to domestic violence, changes in marital status, and social isolation.”
the average person in Switzerland will lose an average of about 0.205 years of life due to these mitigation measures.
“this loss would be entirely borne by 2.1% of the population, who will suffer an average of 9.79” years of life lost.
these figures are “likely to underestimate the true impact of the mitigation strategies,” and more life may be lost due to “economic adversity, changes to activities of daily living such as eating, sleeping, smoking and ordinary alcohol consumption, or decrease in medical provision to those who have health problems unrelated to Covid-19.”
A study published by Just Facts in May 2020 found that anxiety related to C-19 will ultimately destroy more years of life than can possibly be saved by lockdowns. With regard to this study, the accomplished psychiatrist Joseph P. Damore, Jr. wrote that it “thoroughly answers the question about the cure being worse than the disease.”
These facts prove that overreacting to C-19 can ultimately kill more people than are saved. Calling attention to this point, a study published by the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness in June 2020 found:
Exaggerated levels of fear were driven by sensationalist media coverage during the Covid-19 pandemic. And yet, while the public was ordered to lockdown, overall costs and benefits to society from severe mitigation measures had not been assessed.
The implications of overreacting to Covid-19 or any other potential hazard are aptly summarized in a teaching guide published by the American Society for Microbiology. This book explains why “the factors driving your concept of risk—emotion or fact—may or may not seem particularly important to you,” but they certainly are because “there are risks in misperceiving risks.”"
