by Katarina – Grade 11 (April, 2020)
The first duty of man is the seeking after and investigation of truth – Cicero
-Our students of Rhetoric were assigned to write an opinion blog expressing their view of some aspect of the current Corona virus and how it has affected the world. Each student, suprisingly, chose to blog about very different points. This one, written by Katarina, points out the statistics in relation to other viruses as she expresses her deep frustration with the restrictions and rhetoric of it all. It is very interesting and well investigated. –
-Mrs. Raciti
With more and more people seeing their jobs and livelihoods disappearing every day, many are left wondering, what exactly is the Coronavirus? Every time one turns on the news one hears about the tragedies it has caused, the deaths, the unemployment, the fear. Even with covid-19 being one of the only issues reported, it seems as if the information given is incomplete. It is rarely ever compared to any other pandemics, epidemics, or even minor outbreaks. Death tolls are announced in the tens of thousands, yet somehow they forget to mention the extraordinarily large number of people living within the United States. Because of this, it has fallen into the hands of those actively seeking the truth to do their own research and accurately present the facts.
As of April 7 2020, there were roughly 375,000 cases, .1% of the nation’s population, 52,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000 deaths from the Covid-19 virus. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, aslo states, “Information so far suggests that [the] majority of Covid-19 illnesses are mild” including many with no reported symptoms. While the media paints this virus as a death sentence, the CDC itself points out that many people are symptomless and recover without knowledge that they even had it. 97.8% of those who passed away due to Covid-19, though tragic, had underlying medical conditions and 80% of deaths were among adults 65 years and older. This data is unalarming because the elderly and sickly are more prone to diseases due to the lowered efficiency of their immune systems.
The most recent past pandemic was the 2009 H1N1, swine flu, pandemic. In its entirety there were 43.3 – 89.3 million cases, 195 – 403 thousand hospitalizations, and 9 – 18 thousand deaths due to this H1N1 strain. As you can see these numbers show that this past outbreak was drastically worse than the one we are currently experiencing, with over 200 times the number of infected persons that we have now. In addition to that, 80% of all deaths were made up of people under 65, the majority of these people would have had strong immune systems, making this even more dangerous to the healthy. About two months into H1N1, just as we are into Covid-19, there were almost 1 million infected, while today we are only at 38% of that.
From 2017-2018 a record number of persons were infected with the flu during its season. This resulted in that flu season being categorized as an epidemic. There were 39 – 58 million symptomatic cases, 621 thousand – 1.4 million hospitalizations, and 46 – 95 thousand deaths. These numbers are greatly larger than those of this covid-19 pandemic. Even this flu season, 2019-2020, so far has more than double all of the coronavirus fatalities and such. Based on data from October 1 to March 28 there were 39 – 55 million infected, 400 – 730 thousand hospitalizations, and 24 – 63 thousand deaths.
It is very interesting to look at how the CDC says certain viruses spread. They state, “The virus that causes covid-19 is thought to spread mainly from person to person, mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes”. While our lives are being heavily regulated and we are forced to follow absurd executive orders, not backed by the New York State constitution, the government is going off of presumptions to make big decisions. The lack of a decisive explanation for how the coronavirus spreads is not due to it being a new phenomenon, as the CDC has still not been able to confirm how the flu spreads, despite there being outbreaks every year. The CDC says, “Most experts think that flu viruses spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze, or talk… less often, a person might get [the] flu by touching a surface or object that has flu viruses on it”. Both explanations contain words such as though, think, and might, showing that these are speculation and not fact.
Our government is taking advantage of the fear that is blinding extraordinarily large numbers of people in our communities. They are using this crippling fear created by false media narratives, on both sides of the political spectrum, to take away our constitutional rights. Executive orders such as limiting the number of people allowed to gather in private residences, restricting people to the confines of their houses, and outright banning public gatherings is going against your first amendment right to peaceful assembly. Declaring a state of emergency only grants certain, specific government officials the ability to avoid the normal chain of command. It never authorizes any elected individual to take away the constitutional rights of their constituents.
Those of us who have the knowledge required to formulate our own opinion about this covid-19 pandemic need to do all we can to educate those less informed. In doing so we can eliminate the alarm and get rid of the dismay we are witnessing all around us. It is our duty to stand up for those who are incapable of doing so themselves and to restore the nation to what it was before this debacle.