Defiance in the Face of COVID Deaths
"We expect the daily death rate in the United States, because of seasonality and declining vigilance of the public, to reach nearly 3,000 a day in December.""Cumulative deaths expected by January 1st are 410,000; this is 225,000 deaths from now ntil the end of the year.""[With so many Americans still refusing to wear masks, there remains] an extraordinary opportunity [to save lives]. Increasing mask use to the levels seen in Singapore would decrease the cumulative death toll to 288,000, or 122,000 lives saved compared to the reference scenario.""Mask use continues to decline from a peak in early August. Declines are notable throughout the Midwest, including in some states such as Illinois and Iowa with increasing case numbers."Report: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington
By year's end, the warning forecast from the University of Washington health institute states that 410,000 deaths -- 30 percent of which could be avoided through the cautionary practical use of wearing protective face masks -- will materialize. By December under lax conditions of prevention, deaths could conceivably rise to 3,000 daily.
The fearsome message was leavened with the advice that such totals could see a substantial reduction were more Americans to take medical advice more seriously and commit to wearing face masks just as epidemiologists have advised. But the advice comes in the face of cautionary fatigue, when people are fed up with social isolation, of facing a reality where normal routines have been interrupted, and a spirit of defiance has overtaken many groups within society.
Those who delight in denying the efficacy of wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, flaunting safety rules for the spontaneity and freedom that is their right. Attending protests against wearing face masks, a kind of collective euphoria at flouting medical authorities' recommendations to protect the entireity of the population while stunting the freedom of others.
The IHME model projects a death rate cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force where tripling the current death rate of about 850 daily is entirely feasible. A message that appears to be passing by the spirit of the brave and the young who can never imagine anything smacking of danger and early death threatening them. And appear to have difficulty thinking beyond the well-publicized fact that youth contracting COVID-19 rarely results in death.
Calculating beyond one's own potential safety in the balance and choosing to celebrate life in youth's usual carefree manner, challenging fortune to alter the course of their chosen goal of pleasure and liberty to do as they wish -- to steer thoughts toward the realm of personal responsibility as part of a community of family, extended relatives, co-workers and friends is analogous to surrendering the beauty of youthful years to those of stodgy maturity.
The same modelling projection was extended to a report on the situation globally as pertains to the global pandemic and things don't look much rosier in that direction either. Deaths projected to triple to 2.8 million by January 1, 2021. Appearing to entirely discount a global inoculation that may be accelerated before the end of the current year in reflection of a vaccine already in use in Russia, with other researchers in hot pursuit of their third trials and the possible release of authorized doses to begin a global push to inoculate.
In the meanwhile, the nation with the world's third largest population is in the dubious position of leading the world with over 186,000 COVID-19 deaths amongst 6.1 million infections and growing. A situation that makes it all the more puzzling that a significant group within the population refuses to offer protection to the more vulnerable within society by the simple, albeit irritating expedient of wearing protective masks and practising logical social distancing.
Labels: COVID Deaths, Global Pandemic, Modelling Projection, Protective Masks, Social Distancing, United States
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, September 06, 2020
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