9/16/20: President Trump is out on
the campaign trail, inviting fans at rallies to cluster together like seeds in a
pumpkin.
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Painting by Brent Learned. |
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A Trump rally
in Henderson, Nevada draws a crowd of 5,000. Chances are 143 individuals in
attendance had been or were infected with COVID-19.
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Meanwhile,
his own head of CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, testified before a Senate panel. He said
that “the most powerful public health tool” we have in the fight against the
virus would be goddam masks.
He didn’t
say “goddam,” because he’s a dignified scientist, but if he wasn’t thinking it,
he’s a better man than me.
Holding up a
blue surgical mask, probably so some of the idiot Republicans could see what one
looked like, he added, “We have clear scientific
evidence they work [ emphasis added], and they are our best defense. I
might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to
protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.” He said he
thought there could be a vaccine by the end of this year. It might not be any
more effective than the vaccines for ordinary flu. It would still be wise to get
vaccinated, but not 100 percent effective.
“If I don’t
get an immune response, the vaccine’s not going to protect me. This face mask
will,” Dr. Redfield added for emphasis. He also cautioned that it would be
six to nine months, once a vaccine was available, before all Americans could get
it. In other words: we might not be safe until the fall of 2021.
Adm. Brett
Giroir, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, agreed with
Redfield. He told lawmakers that wearing a face covering “is one of the most
important things we can do to prevent spread.”
Unfortunately,
the night before, President Trump had agreed to sit down with George Stephanopoulos
for a televised town hall, and take questions from audience members, who
appeared, at a distance, one by one. And wearing masks. At one point, he said
he was sure a vaccine was coming. He was also sure we were “turning a corner”
in the fight against the coronavirus. He was sure we would soon have “herd mentality” which would
help stop the spread.
The president
probably meant “herd immunity,” but with the Big Orange Buffoon you can never
tell.
At the White
House, today, these conflicting and even baffling messages, led to some serious
tap dancing. President Trump said he thought Dr. Redfield misunderstood the
question about vaccines.
Tap-dancing
queen, White House Press Secretary McEnany, came out and clackity-clacked her toe
plates for reporters. “Herd immunity,” she said, was really no part of Trump’s
strategy for stopping the spread.
Even if he
did talk about it as if it were.
Being the
clever blogger that I am, I decided to do a little checking. Herd immunity
begins to develop when enough people have had a disease, and it becomes harder
and harder for infected persons to pass the infection along. Once the virus is
defeated by the immune system of the “host” who carries the infection, or even
if the carrier dies, the virus dies, too, making further spread impossible. If
a person is infected and has contact with people who are already immune, herd
immunity is in effect. Most experts believe you need an infection rate of at
least 60% before herd immunity begins to kick in and slow the spread. At
70-90% the spread begins to end.
So, how are
we doing now, I wondered?
Johns Hopkins
runs the numbers daily, and you can learn a great deal about the spread of
COVID-19, if you care to check.
(Something tells me the president never does.)
Using an
interactive map, I can click on any county in the U.S.A. and
see how many cases of the coronavirus they have had, per 100,000 population. In
Hamilton County, Ohio, where my wife and I live, and also my son, Seth, and
Ellora, our only grandchild, the number this morning is 1,514. That would mean,
1.5 persons in every 100 in our county have had the disease. The county with
the highest infection rate in the state is Marion, with 4,667. Another way to
look at the problem would be that 1 in every 21 residents of Marion County has had
COVID-19. My youngest daughter, Emily, lives in Licking County, where 1 in
every 100 persons is or has been infected. She’s a nurse. So, she knows how to
take care of herself; but she’s also pregnant with twins, and a type-1 diabetic.
If she were to be infected, she’s at higher risk.
My second
youngest, Sarah, lives in Portland, Oregon. If she and her husband Logan don’t
get smoked to death by all the fires ravishing the West Coast, Multnomah County
has only 815 cases per 100,000. And many came early in the spread of this
malicious disease. She’s a nurse practitioner, herself, and Logan is in health
policy, and they’re working mostly from home.
Abby, my
oldest daughter, lives in Dunwoody, Georgia and works on infectious diseases at
CDC. I keep asking her when she thinks we’ll get a grip on this virus. She keeps
saying no one knows. She’s in DeKalb County, where 2,339 persons per 100,000
have had the virus.
I hope she and her husband Alex don’t cross paths with anyone else who has been infected and I hope they don’t get sick.
I thought it
might be interesting to do at least one more: Clark County, Nevada, where
President Trump held an indoor rally just four days ago.
Almost no one in the crowd felt a need to don a mask, because that’s not what
Trump fans do. Team Trump estimates 5,000 people attended.
Infections in
Clark County number 2,821 per 100,000. That comes out to one case for every 35
persons.
Or, in a
crowd of 5,000, you could assume 143 individuals either had had or did have
COVID-19.
POSTSCRIPT: How bad can this disease get? At
one wedding in Maine this summer, at least one guest carried the disease. Others
in attendance were infected and brought the virus home and then to work.
That wedding
is now linked to 175 infections
and seven deaths.
Ten additional
cases may be tied to pastor Todd Bell, who officiated, and who may have carried
germs back to his home church. Bell has been critical of government efforts to
control the spread.
He considers
limits on the number of persons who can attend his church a violation of his
and his parishioners’ First Amendment rights.
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