Nicholas Hoogs’ March 27 letter to the Gazette, under the title “Delaware issues draconian orders,” contains a very long list of gripes based on much ignorance and a broad unwillingness or inability to think about the big picture.
Unlike him, I have spent several hours every day in the last few weeks looking up everything on the internet on the COVID-19 disease and reading practically everything in most of the local papers.
I have answers for all of Hoogs’ questions and I am comfortable with my better understanding of the seriousness of the COVID-19 situation. I also think that the reactions to the COVID-19 situation as organized by our local, state, and federal governments are responsible, realistic and justifiable. I provide my explanation below.
Here are the facts: (1) COVID-19 is much more contagious than the flu. (2) Compared to the flu, we have not yet even one season of experience with this disease. (3) There is no vaccine for COVID-19 (at least for the flu there are vaccines with some efficacy against some flu strains and a lot of us do get our flu shots). (4) The COVID-19 death rate data we have up to now is about 10 times higher than flu. (5) The death rate for older people, and particularly for those with other medical problems, is roughly another 10 times worse. (6) The increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases with every passing day keeps getting worse. (7) China has shown that a draconian approach can stop or almost stop the spread. (8) COVID-19 has shown for some patients a kind of serious lung damage which is permanent and means that these people will never fully recover. (9) The vast majority of the rest of the world is very excited and worried, and most countries are ordering their own draconian lockdowns over COVID-19. (10) The extreme shortage of test kits and less optimum use of the kits we do have is contributing to an inadequate understanding of the disease. (11) Reports of doctors, nurses, and hospital staff being killed by COVID-19 are telling us that our whole healthcare system is suffering a general degradation in facility safety and medical integrity for both staff and patients. Stories from Europe and particularly from Italy and Spain say that they don’t know what to do with all the extra dead bodies caused by COVID-19. Their hospitals are more than swamped and suffering is off the scale.
Just three weeks ago, I was having the notion that maybe we were overreacting. By two weeks ago I changed my mind. Yes, the lockdown is going to hurt a lot of people. Should we be letting COVID-19 just run its course without intervention? Look up yourself the “1918 flu” deaths for just the USA (there was no vaccine for it back then). I found 600,000. In recent years the annual flu deaths in the USA run from 12,000 to 60,000. COVID-19 deaths in the USA, now, are at 1,700 (as of this writing) and increasing about 14 percent per day. A quick calculation gets about 50,000 deaths by about one month from now.
It would be a disaster if we didn’t do the draconian lockdown. Standing around with our hands in our pockets would be comparable to a war crime. I sympathize with the people taking an economic hit because of all this. They should have a look at the stimulus packages now coming out of our governments in record time and see if they can find some help there. Initiatives and further expansions of efforts from charities now organizing to help deal with the COVID-19 impact may also be useful.
Arthur E. Sowers
Harbeson
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to viewpoints@capegazette.com. All letters are considered at the discretion of the newsroom and published as space allows. Due to the large volume of submissions, we cannot acknowledge receipt of each submission. Letters must include a phone number and address for verification. Keep letters to 400 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content or length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Letters should focus on local issues, not national topics or personalities. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days regarding a particular topic. Authors may submit a second letter within that time period if it pertains to a different issue. Letters may not be critical of personalities or specific businesses. Criticism of public figures is permissible. Endorsement letters for political candidates are no longer accepted. Letters must be the author’s original work, and may not be generated by artificial intelligence tools. Templates, form letters and letters containing language similar to other submissions will not be published.
