It’s Not Just People Dying Posted on July 25, 2020
Dear Fellow Survivalist;
As long as the COVID-19 pandemic has been going on, I’ve been hearing rumors about people who have suffered permanent damage to their health. Basically all of these rumors have been in the form of posts on Facebook, written by people who had supposedly been infected by the disease. They had all suffered greatly and many were still suffering. But like anything else you see on social media, it’s hard to know what to believe.
One part of the national debate that’s going on right now is about just how dangerous COVID is. There are those who are pointing to the high number of people testing positive, talking about the surge in cases. On the other side of the argument, are those who are saying that we shouldn’t be so concerned, since only one percent of the people who catch COVID-19 end up dying from it.
It’s easy to blow off that one percent, because it doesn’t sound like much. That is, it’s easy until it touches you personally. But at least three people I know personally have died of the disease. It’s no longer an abstraction for me. Those were real people I talked to and knew; and now, they’re no more.
But as far as I can tell, that one percent isn’t the right number. Of the more than four million total cases here in the United States, 3.6 percent have died. Those are hard numbers. I don’t know how they came up with that one percent number.
But what about the rest? Right now, roughly half the total cases we’ve had here in the US are still active cases. That means that over 2 million people still have COVID right now. What is happening to those people? They’re not all in the hospital; but are they okay?
It’s well known that COVID-19 doesn’t affect everyone equally. Of the 2 million plus ongoing cases, only 19,149 are considered serious or critical. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it means that those are the people in intensive care right now. I know that my city has about 50% more people in intensive care than we have intensive care beds right now. Many of those will die.
But what about those who live? Is this truly like the flu and people fully recover? I imagine some do. But there’s information coming out now saying that not all do. I just found some numbers on that for the first time this morning.
For every person who dies of the disease:
There will be 10 whose lungs are permanently damaged
18 will have permanent heart damage
3 will end up having strokes
2 will have chronic problems with weakness and loss of coordination due to neurological damage
Another 2 will have loss of cognitive function due to neurological damage
If we assume that none of those people have more than one of those things happen to them (which probably isn’t accurate) and that the one percent number is actually true, this totals up to 36% of the population; 119 million people.
Granted, that assumption probably isn’t true. People who end up with one of those long-term effects from the disease will probably end up with more than one. At the same time, just about everyone who goes to the hospital will likely suffer some sort of long-term effect, which will most likely last the rest of their lives. Based upon current numbers, that’s only going to be 62 million people. That’s not all that bad, is it?
This is the part of the story which has been kept hidden from us. That’s probably because our medical community it really hasn’t been long enough to understand the long-term effects. Even this information is preliminary and will probably change over time. But it’s important. We’re not dealing with a disease that just goes away, leaving us like before. That’s happened before, but it was long enough ago, that few people today remember it.
Everyone has concentrated on the infection rate and the death rate; but that’s not all we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a game changer and the game isn’t being changed for our good. Considering that the antibodies for this disease only stay in the human body for a matter of weeks, there’s no saying how bad things can get. It depends on you and me.
I don’t know about you, but as for me and my household, we will wear our masks, wash our hands, and do everything else we can. We won’t do that because of fear, but because it’s the right thing to do. Like keeping our powder dry and our survival gear close at hand.