Time for a quick Public Service Announcement from Health Insurance Issues With Dave:
By now almost all of us accept that the Coronavirus threat is real. The two ways we can protect ourselves and others is to wash our hands properly for a full 20 seconds and to stay home as much as possible. It turns out that lots of people are asymptomatic and capable of infecting others for days before they start coughing and/or running a fever. It is important that even though you need to maximize social (physical) distancing, you shouldn’t let this force you to minimize social interaction. My friend John in New Orleans, a veteran of Hurricane Katrina, has expressed to me his concerns about the mental health implications of both the virus and the necessary lockdown. Stay connected. Your friends, your family, and even your co-workers miss you.
The insurance companies have a variety of resources for all Americans, not just their clients. Aetna has an excellent information post about coping with the obvious and reasonable fears that we are all experiencing with the Coronavirus pandemic. This link is worth a couple of moments of your time.
Oscar has created a personal risk assessment survey that is available to both their clients and the general public. This survey is no replacement for a test, but you will find it useful. This is a reminder that the more information you have the better chance you have to protect yourself.
The federal government reports, per Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, that if we do everything correctly between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans will succumb to COVID 19. Mr. Trump considers 100,000 dead Americans a victory. Let’s be clear, there is nothing special about being 1 out of 100,000. Stay Safe. Stay Healthy.
DAVE
Picture – A Quiet Place in Tennessee – David L Cunix
Dave, perhaps if you placed the President’s comments in proper context you would understand that as a “worst case scenario” 100,000 deaths would be a victory – when compared to what has happened in past pandemics in the United States – especially when the numbers are normalized per 100,000 or 1,000,000 of population. What you will find is that the 1918 “Spanish” Flu will have been far more devesting to our country than the coronavirus is expected to be. We lost approximately 675,000 Americans during the 1918 pandemic, and given the difference in national population, the “normalized” impact was far more severe than what we expect from Covid 19. So when placed in context, and assuming the Italian model is “appropriate” then 100,000 deaths would be a public health victory.
Phil, I force myself to sit through the President’s rally/presser daily. I fully understand, as do many of my readers, that we are witnessing a failure of leadership that no army of apologists can hide. You may be satisfied with Trump’s dithering. I am not. Modern medicine has come a long way in 100 years. For now, we all need to do our best to stay safe and out of harm’s way.
DAVE