Of Coyotes, Copernicus, and the Constitution: My Reactions to Coronavirus Updates

I started out writing a critical thinking paper to examine two sides of an issue. I wound up with a journal.

I was fascinated by coronavirus news long before the craze for social distancing hit the United 

States. I struggled to understand the reality of the problem and the reason for people’s reactions. Every morning my iPhone would provide at least three headlines on the topic from CNN, the Washington Post, or some other mainline source, and I devoured it.

Now the coronavirus is here. The feds are up in arms. New Mexico’s governor is acting. Everyone on Facebook is reacting. And my phone provides multiple headlines a day with very little other news.

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It seems to me that most people are in one of two camps. The vast majority of my Facebook friends, and apparently most of America, are very worried about the coronavirus. Their mantra is “have some concern for our most vulnerable populations!” And they like to say/write that if, in a few months, the coronavirus dies out and few people were harmed, “that’s the point,” (that’s why we had stay at home orders, etc.). I think you’d agree that popular media supports this view, that coronavirus is dangerous and the government is responsible to protect people from it. Certainly, if the government is protecting people and causing them to have financial difficulties, the government should assure economic protection and compensation.

The benefits appear manifold. We’ll flatten the curve, not overwhelm hospitals, save lives. AND, 

America’s over exhausted families will rest. Parents will understand what is happening in schools and children will have a chance to learn of life. People will reconnect and pollution will diminish while cows do not. I hope. I hope.

(But… such fear from this push. Fear that crowds the ER with people not in critical condition, fear that causes resentment toward the rural who must go to town for medical care. And I fear. I fear for the children at home with unstable parents, fear for those suffering from domestic abuse undetected. I fear for those with underlying medical conditions or those needing routine preventative care. I fear for the psychiatric effects of cutting off relationships. And I fear that governmental and economic effects will be far more damaging than commonly imagined.)

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Then there’s the other camp. I’m not talking about the conspiracy theorists (whom I’ve spent little time reading about) or the thugs spraying off duty nurses with Lysol. I’m avoiding the extremes. I’m just talking about people who maybe aren’t as concerned over coronavirus and the handful who maybe don’t expect the government to do anything…It takes more time to understand this view because we don’t really hear about it much. And I might work backward here, and talk about government actions first. 

I will interrupt, though, with a question it seems few are asking, a little of my own opinion. If the government is going to provide money in the crisis at all, where will it come from? We are already in debt. Tax the richest? Taking all their money will only last a few months. I’d rather keep my quarter than give the government a dollar so they can give me a quarter back.

The Constitution

Camp Two encompasses quite a few people concerned about the loss of rights involved in shelter in place/social distancing mandates. Second amendment, second part, guarantees Americans the right to assemble. Struck down in many states, including New Mexico. Right to private property, as in - use of property, right to profits from business  - guaranteed by the end of the fifth amendment, but also struck down through orders resulting from emergency declarations. Now we’re tracking cell phones to check out compliance with social distancing 

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/social-distancing-maps-cellphone-location/). Anyone checked the fourth amendment lately? Read the Bill of Rights here.

“It’s an emergency” one protests. Did the Founders really create the Bill of Rights assuming it would be ignored in case of emergency? The Supreme Court in 1866 said no (Ex parte Milligan), but the tide turned in the 20th century (see National Emergency and Private Property Rights  ) as World War I opened doors for multiple presidents to follow Abraham Lincoln’s example in declaring emergencies as rationale for proceedings outside constitutional limits. Nevertheless the Constitution lists the powers of the government in Section 8 and lockdowns to present sickness are not among them.

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I concede that trying to argue the rights of the government (particularly state governments) to declare emergencies is futile, although I still wouldn’t be surprised to see violated rights wind up in court. I would like to mention that South Korea’s strategy, while very invasive in the quarantine and tracking regimes of the infected, relies mostly on voluntary defenses from the people and has not shut the country down, flatly violating the rights of all citizens.

Aside from governmental response, we do face the question - is this an emergency? Smallpox in the US in the early 20th century was highly infectious and killed 20-60% of those infected. It was curbed with governmental- mostly state - input into vaccination and strict quarantine rules for infected households. Tuberculosis is carried unknowingly by up to 13 million people in the US alone, contagious through coughs and sneezes, and causes 500+ deaths each year (1.3 million worldwide). Neither smallpox nor tuberculosis triggered lockdowns.

I wish there were a placebo, a country doing nothing, which we could examine to see how coronavirus would affect the population were it not treated as a governmental problem. The closest thing we have is the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined with the passengers forced to interact. Death rate? 0.91% of those infected (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate).

Which brings me to coyotes.

Coyotes

The common defense of party two, the “everyone’s overreacting camp” is that people die from the flu, especially the vulnerable people. They do - and while the death rate of the flu is far lower than coronavirus, the rate of infection is far higher. Using 2019 numbers, it appears that the chance of any one person in the American population dying from the flu is .01%. Using the entire population of passengers on board the Diamond Princess, the chance of any one dying is about .15%. Scary comparison, seeming to make the coronavirus hugely more dangerous.

I have seen another strategy used. Take Italy’s exceptionally high numbers: 8,215 deaths currently. The US population is about 5 times that of Italy, so if 5 times that number of people died, that would be 40,000 people. 36,560 people died in car crashes in 2018 - and the government already regulates traffic. Maybe we should shut down roads and cars as a national emergency.

But I digress. I was going to tell you about coyotes. They outlawed coyote hunting contests in NM because killing them disrupts pack structures, by the way. Anyway we had a cow who had trouble calving and the calf got stuck. The coyote pack ate the calf’s head and shoulders, so the rest of the calf went back into the uterus. Despite a C-section, the cow died. We had another calf who had scours (calf diarrhea due to bacteria, viruses, or overeating). The coyotes chewed off his rear end before we found him, warm, but dead.

So what killed our calves? Did the first die from being stuck, or from the coyotes? Did the mama die from having trouble calving or from exhaustion and infection thanks to the coyotes? Did the second calf die from scours or from the coyotes? Any combination of yes and no is possible. We will never know. Probably the first calf would have died for sure anyway, and the cow, but it’s the second calf brings real doubt to my mind.

Liken the coyotes to the situation at hand. Most coronavirus deaths seem to be in the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. How many actually died from coronavirus and how many might have died anyway, in approximately the same time period, due to other health conditions? Please don’t tell me I’m being callous and putting my selfishness above the health of the most vulnerable. First of all, stay at home orders have changed pretty much nothing in this stay-at-home mama’s life or finances, so I have no personal complaint. Secondly, my grandma died less than a year ago with a lung and heart condition. One year at Christmas, Jael and I stayed home because Seth had the flu and we didn’t want to give it to her. I understand being cautious and caring for the vulnerable. I’m just not sure coronavirus numbers constitute an emergency. 

Especially when we look at reports of insufficient and inaccurate coronavirus reporting and projecting…. (On insufficient information or mistaken predictions). And check out

this chart of the effectiveness of various strategies in reducing the disease - just quarantining the sick would reduce caseload without a “national emergency.” Even the UK has declared that coronavirus is not a “disease of high consequence” because the death rate is lower than originally thought (and their herd immunity strategy might be working after all!)

But hospitals are overwhelmed! Yes, bless the medical professionals who have to treat every patient as if they have coronavirus whether they do or not and who are thus out of equipment and energy. And thank God (really, please do) that we have private hospitals and research facilities to fill in gaps, something most other countries in the news lack as they depend on socialized medicine. Is scaring everyone to death and shutting down preventative care really an answer? Maybe we should call on good hearted Americans to aid and assist… something many seamstresses are already doing in trying to fill the mask gap, something Ford and GM supposedly are trying to do in providing ventilators, something neighbors are doing for other neighbors.

Yes, I have read many articles on “why coronavirus is dangerous.” There are at least three or four different defenses of why it is more dangerous than other viruses, all involving RNA. Imagine that, the RNA changes how something behaves.  But a few scientists, medical professionals, etc. dare to say it is not so much more dangerous that it cannot be treated without a vaccine. Camp 1, those who believe we are in a time of emergency, say they’re kooks.

Copernicus

Anybody remember Copernicus? Sun, solar system, etc. And Galileo? They’re in our science history books, kind of famous. You know what they were considered during their lifetimes? Kooks, crazy! Good science does not always agree with prevalent science. 

Most interesting to me is the media’s glaring lack of reporting effective treatments and recoveries. Example? On March 9, MedicineNet (pretty mainline website) reported that Chinese doctors were doing clinical trials with intravenous Vitamin C.  I found this in several other mainline publications, along with an explanation of why such a treatment might work. The idea then disappears except on some alternative health websites, which report that it was highly effective. This isn’t “take a vitamin and avoid the virus.” It is much more intense - but far cheaper and more accessible than any pharmaceutical. Either it worked or it didn’t. Popular media doesn’t want us to know.

Likewise missing information…. Where are American recovery numbers? Even when I look specifically at the NM case tolls, I see the phrase “0 recoveries.” Yet my family has personal contact with two cases who have had multiple negative tests, indicating recovery.

How much other news is to be found only on the “kooky websites?” Who is to say they don’t have more truth than the media, which most certainly selectively reports and has been known to falsify? 

Conclusion

There is a abundance of other articles I’ve wanted to share, comments I want to make, arguments I want to have. 

No, not arguments. Discussions. Because I like to to talk to intelligent people with whom I have a relationship. I like to share, to think, not to make people angry or prove how right and how smart I am. And to that end, I have limited myself to this blog, written mainly for self processing and read only by people who are really interested. 

It’s OK if you disagree. It’s OK if you think I am a kook or fool. Please don’t use the slander going around on Facebook about how those who disagree with governmental intervention are uncaring or concerned only for their pocketbooks, for my relationship with God would reprimand such an attitude driving this blog. And my relationship with God, the forgiveness for my selfishness provided by the work of Jesus, is much more important than my opinions on coronavirus.

That is all.