CORONAVIRUS STORY BEST REVEALED IN ITS AWFUL NUMBERS
By Wally Avett 
We’re fine, thank you, my wife and I just another senior couple in self-isolation.
In masks and gloves and glasses, to protect against any stray virus, we venture to supermarkets in early morning hours reserved for the elderly. But only once a week.
At home I watch television and computer screens constantly, trying to learn what it’s doing to us and when and how it may end.
Here’s a patchwork version of what I am learning. Some of this may be new to you, some you already knew.
Unfortunately, some of you are making a big mistake in not taking this seriously. I hope you do not regret it, and if you get the virus, we’ll hope you survive it. Thankfully, most people do.
But thousands don’t and the grim toll soars higher each day, bodies piling up faster in the cities than they can be buried.
RATES OF DEATH AND LIFE
On the Web and on TV they give the death numbers constantly but usually don’t give how many are surviving. Asheville (Buncombe County) recently reported at that time some 85 percent of their virus cases had recovered, others still in hospitals.
Here in Cherokee County we’ve had 16 virus cases with 1 death, a mortality rate of 6 percent. National numbers vary week-to-week from 4 to 7 percent.
Hotspots show high rates of both virus cases and deaths. Patients have numbered about 20 per 100,000 people in rural Minnesota but close to 1,000 per 100,000 population in hard-hit New York City.
Density of the population matters, the virus coming from China, where people live in each other’s laps, breathing each other’s breaths and diseases thrive.
Physical conditions also contribute. Doctors studied 4,100 virus patients in New York City and found the majority shared two things in common. One, they were elderly. Two, they were obese.
Ventilators, which can breathe for the critically ill, get a lot of mention but in reality, are a last-ditch treatment.
A study of ventilator patients in Washington State showed a death rate above 70 percent.
I saw an email from a doctor in South Mississippi who also estimated 70 percent of ventilator patients perish on the breathing device.
“The COVID virus requires moisture to survive,” he wrote. “It’s mixed in spit droplets aerosolized by coughing, talking and even breathing…swirl outward for a few feet…then dry out, killing the virus…it’s difficult to get except through breathing in the virus…”
EARLY LOCKDOWNS PAY OFF IN NUMBERS
California has 40 million people, locked down early and it plainly shows. Georgia has a population of 10 million and was locked down only recently. California had 790 deaths, Georgia (with just a quarter of California’s population) had 550 deaths in recent reports.
North Carolina has the same population as Georgia, locked down much earlier and has only about one-fifth the number of deaths.
Two preachers in Virginia defied lockdown orders, one white and one black, not connected to each other in any way. Each got the virus and died.
Stay at home secluded, wash your hands often, wear full protection when you come to town, avoid crowds.
Covid is a monster and it’s real. But we’ll get through this in due time. Keep the faith.
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