A More Sensible Way to Protect Americans from COVID-19
As the stock market loses one-quarter of its value due to the Coronavirus panic, we are told that we must stay vigilant because of the virus’s deadly consequences. Even though we know that these deadly consequences are overwhelming among well identified risk groups, we have taken actions that are not targeted but impact on wide numbers of individuals who are at virtually no risk of serious health consequences: school, entertainment, and business closing among them.
First, the death rates may be greatly inflated. The WHO continues to announce a death rate of 3.4 percent even though virtually no serious scientist believes it is so high. Using the numbers from South Korea, you get a rate just under 0.7 percent. Given those who were asymptomatic and not tested, the actual rate is probably substantially lower. This brings into question the claim by America’s chief immunologist Anthony Fauci that Coronavirus death rates are ten times the ordinary flu. Indeed, in Germany, among the first 4,000 cases reported, there have only been 8 deaths and with inclusion of asymptomatic cases the death rate is even lower than in South Korea. However, the focus instead is on Italy, promoting the fear that our healthcare system will be overwhelmed if we don’t take draconian measures.
Statistics continue to indicate that people under 75 years old with no underlying health risk have little to fear, especially those under 50 years old. In Italy, 89 percent of the deaths were individuals at least 70 years old. In the U.S., among the first 48 known deaths — more than half of which occurred in Seattle-area nursing homes — the average age is close to 80 years old and the handful of cases below 60 years old was individuals with seriously compromised immune systems.
Given the lack of serious health threats to healthy individuals under 60 years old, we should put modest restrictions on their behavior. These people should work and socialize but be cognizant of appropriate behaviors: maintain strict hygiene regiments and social distancing, and avoid large social gatherings. If any of these otherwise healthy individuals exhibit virus symptoms, they should self-isolate rather than going to medical facilities or testing sites. We should not be closing all restaurants as was done in states such as New York, Michigan, and Ohio. This will have devastating economic effects, particularly on the immigrant owners and workers in the tens of thousands of ethnic restaurants that are scattered throughout New York City alone.
We should focus our resources and testing efforts on protecting the most vulnerable population; it is these individuals who should be encouraged to self-quarantine as much as possible. As the just announced government protocols stipulate, those who work in nursing homes or are agency-provided home health care attendants should have testing priorities. However, testing should be available to a limited number of family members who would then be certified to visit their loved ones in assisted living institutions.
In addition, testing should be extended to dedicated individuals responsible for bringing food and other necessary items to the elderly living alone. Indeed, this was part of President Trump’s measures described at his Friday news conference. Two of the corporate links — LHC Group and Signify Health — have substantial experience providing medical services to the homebound elderly and others with significant health problems. These are the services that must be scaled up if we want to protect vulnerable populations.
While contracted home healthcare and nursing home employees are to be tested, many homebound elderly are cared for by family members or an informal workforce, many of whom are undocumented. If this large group of informal caregivers is being tested only after becoming symptomatic, they may have already infected the vulnerable individuals they are caring for. Thus, testing protocols should also prioritize these informal caregivers.
This approach accepts the fact that by not having a more aggressive lockdown, many more Americans may contract the virus but we will limit deaths and serious illnesses by targeting government efforts to the most vulnerable without having as devastating an economic impact. Why does public policy continue to focus on limiting the overall which will have such dire economic consequences cases rather than targeting efforts? Hopefully, as this official testing approach becomes more widely available, more individuals who have direct responsibility for the vulnerable will extend the priority testing that is needed.
Robert Cherry is professor emeritus at Brooklyn College and is author of Jewish and Christian Views on Bodily Pleasure (Wipf & Stock, 2018).
