A Prediction for Tuesday

I’m not much qualified for political prognostication, and not too fond of posting my potentially wayward reflections in somewhat permanent ink. But big things are afoot in our leaky ship.

I have no idea who will be our president Wednesday morning, but I’m relatively sure of what Coronavirus is going to do to their administration. Before I get into that, I’d like to share some data that has driven me to the point of fortune telling this morning. A quick word about data by the way – it’s all we have. Someone turned up the emotional heat on our political sensibilites, warping our capacity for truth detection. Now, CNN says Coronavirus will kill us all while Fox News tells me that it’s going to tank the economy and make us all homeless. The only thing insulated from the emotion of our predicament is the information that’s being professionaly collected and, in some instances, disseminated publicly.

Everyone knows that cases have spiked far beyond anyone thought imaginable. But, as Trump has asked, why focus so much on cases? Most people who get infected will be completely asymptomatic, never knowing that they’ve been infected. In addition, the death rate hasn’t seen nearly the spike we saw in the beginning, so why make such a fuss that we have to potentially shut down the economy?

I don’t know anybody who’s died from Coronavirus.

But the most important metric in all of this is hospitalization rates. These give us a very clear picture of how many people are symptomatic, and offer an early warning system for potentially rising death counts. If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard much about this metric, consider the following story from NPR.

Initially, the CDC was collecting and disseminating this information, but was stripped of that duty in July. Now, the department of Health and Human Services, for whatever reason, has taken up that mantle, but they don’t want to publicy share their data. According to an HHS spokesperson, transparency is important, but they also want to respect privacy.

I’m still working through what hospital rates have to do with individual privacy.

Either way, NPR pestered HHS for their most salient data points. Here they are in brief:

The orange line represents the percentage of reporting facilites currently operating over 80% of their ICU capacity, a rise of nearly 3 points since the end of June. If hospitalizations rise another 3 points in the next quarter, we’ll be adding another 150 ICU facilities nearing capacity, and a higher death rate to follow. Unfortunately, given the correlation between rising case numbers and hospitalization rates, the next 4 months will see a sharper increase than 3%.

The HHS data confirms that we can trust Coronavirus case counts for a sound picture of this pandemic’s severity. As we approach winter (more people congregating inside), and as we mount a spike in cases that eclipses Coronavirus’ initial attack by a factor of 3, it’s safe to say that we have a problem – a big one.

With that, my prediction: because of our collective unwillingness to follow simple guidelines, Coronavirus will grow to a point where this already shaky economy won’t be able to handle it. The $$$ meltdown that we’re trying to avoid is coming, regardless of who’s president. If Biden is elected, he’ll be much more intense about masks, social distancing, avoiding indoors, etc., all of which will cause the economic meltdown that’s coming either way. But, because the correlation between Coronavirus and the economy won’t be nearly as apparent as it would if we let the body count triple, and because the anti-maskers will still be Trump supporters, Biden will be blamed for the economic carnage.

If Trump is elected, he’ll continue on his current course, which will also end with economy shutting down. But, as we all know at this point, someone else will be blamed for it. Nobody’s bothered by the fact that He’s still calling it the flu, and, as he promised in his first campaign, he could be directly responsible for someone else’s death and none of his followers would bat an eye.

Hopefully my prediction is bunk and we find a different way to deal with the severity of things, or we get irrefutable evidence that our data is bunk, and we can all get back to livin’. But given a death rate that rivals the third highest cause of death in the US + traffic fatalities + flu deaths, I’m confident that our data is accurate, and that we’re in dire need of a 180.

Fauci himself said that we’re going in the wrong direction:

“We’re going in the wrong direction.” ~ Anthony Fauci

Wrong directions are a funny thing. In most regards, going the wrong way isn’t so bad if you catch it early. But the longer one goes down the wrong road, the longer it takes to get back on the right one, and we’ve been on this road for nearly a year. Fauci also reflected, recently, “If things do not change, if they continue on the course we’re on, there’s gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations, and deaths.”

Again, our economy can’t handle that. If he’s right, the pain will extend far beyond the lives of those infected with COVID-19.

A few days ago, I took a walk with an MD friend who had just come off an ER rotation. “Covid is real,” he said, reflecting on the increasing number of hospitalizations in Denver. My wife says the same, as do all my other MD friends.

Please accept my yuge apology for the doom and gloom. I know it’s the last thing we want to hear. But, unfortunately, this is us. Whoever’s elected, we’re in for more physical hurt, as well as the economic trouble that will come with it. And, of course, there will be plenty of blaming and finger pointing to follow since we’re the most un-united United States since the Civil War.

That might be coming too.

On the upside, as Christians, we don’t have to saddle ourselves with the burden of fixing all of this. That’s God’s job – He’s the only one big enough to handle it. Our job is to lash ourselves to the mast and resist the siren call of self-righteousness, judgmentalism, disunity, finger pointing, ignorance, political segregation, and all the other unGodly BS that’s ripping this country apart. We can be devout, upstanding Christians and, at the same time, submit to whatever personal sacrifices are required by this pandemic and the majority of world scientific opinion that’s on the same page about masks, distancing, and the outdoors.

Sadly, at this point in the game, due mainly to our refusal to follow simple rules, things have gotten much worse, and the road home, much longer. There’s no way to stem the tide here without significant damage to the economy. In the early days, we could have taken decisive action, maybe even overkilled it a little, and been in a better spot. Neither Taiwan nor New Zealand are in quite the leaky boat that we find ourselves in, but they’re much more united than we are, with regards to Coronavirus at least.

When the economy does tank, it won’t be Trump’s fault, or Biden’s, or the liberal’s, or the conservative’s. It’ll be ours. We’re the idiots who said “no” to science. We’re the sheep who took a stand against being sheep, sometimes violently so, flocking to indoor worship services in defiance of “socialism.” We’re the last group of people who should place our trust in politics, while bending our soul to a guy who, I’m convinced, has intimate knowledge of Coronavirus’ severity, but who also sees it as a threat to his success.

There are consequences to all of this, and I’m ever more convinced that they’re on their way, hoping that I’m wrong, happy to eat crow for all that’s permanently recorded above.