Some not so simple things you need to know in order to evaluate what you are being told
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
The basic thing to be understood is that there is a real threat to life posed by Covid-19. This is primarily because it is a disease entirely new to our species. This means that there are no people in the world who are immune because of inheriting factors specific to the disease. This does not mean that there are no people with natural immunity, but that immunity is related to individual body chemistry and would require that the individual be tested prior to exposure to the virus and subsequent to exposure.
Obviously, we would have an impossible identification task. As the infection spreads through a population (killing its way), a population of survivors emerges carrying factors that protect against the disease. This is the beginning of what is called herd immunity which means that a high percentage of the population will carry survivability in their immune systems and physiology (70/30,60/40?). That will depend on geography.
Why are we getting conflicting predictions about the length of time involved, the future toll of lives and the likelihood of recrudescence? First of all, nobody knows. A number of predictions are based on past epidemics and pandemics. They have all involved non-pristine agents. Predictions are based on modeling. Models all have underlying assumptions. The wider the panorama of assumptions, the more complex the evolved model. For the prediction of the disappearance of the Covid-19 threat by summer requires a simple arithmetic formula and the assumption that the virus will behave like the known mild flu.
The prediction of a resurgence in 3 to 6 months requires a more complex series of assumptions and reliance on the consequences of forced resumption of normative interaction, to avoid economic collapse and the assumption that the virus will retain its pathogenicity relatively unaltered. This requires a differential calculus involving a dependent and independent but necessarily related variable (fx=dx dy) and overtime and distance the integral calculus enclosing a range of differentials.
The guess is what it comes down to much of the time, but the guess is often politically motivated. Minimization and pollyanna optimism for a party in power, guilty of dismantling public health safeguards and suggesting monetary infusions that cannot be applied timely to medical and public health deficits and which in the form of subsidies are likely to be misused by big business.
Individual monetary infusions can only affect the salaried and leaves the day worker, the sinew of our nation unaided.
