Greater Deaths By Other Causes that we Ignore
People are dying all over the world either with or from the COVID-19 virus.
Every death is significant, but how do these COVID-19 deaths compare to deaths from other causes?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 2,813,503 registered deaths in the United States in 2017 or 7,708 per day. The age-adjusted death rate, which accounts for the aging population, is 731.9 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S. This is an increase of 0.4% over 2016's death rate. Jul 4, 2019 In South Africa the total deaths in 2013 were 2015460, i.e.236 deaths or 1262 per day with the three leading causes of natural deaths in 2014 were tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus and cerebrovascular diseases.In Australia there were 165,100 deaths per year or 452 per day.
Why have we reacted so strongly to deaths from this plaque of mostly the elderly and those with underlying conditions which make them susceptible to virus attack?
Due to some deeply evolved responses to disease, fears of contagion lead us to become more conformist and tribalistic, and our leaders have been driven to a misplaced ´better safe than sorry logic¸ and reactions.
Apparently any signs of free thinking ... become less valued when there is the risk of contagion.
Trying to understand the value of different containment policies, we might question whether our thoughts are really the result of rational reasoning, or whether they might have been shaped by ancient response that evolved millennia before the discovery of germ theory.
This is the article that led me to do some thinking and research. Is the cure worse than the disease?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html
Deaths that we do little about
TB
Tuberculosis is a serious public health issue in South Africa. In 2014 about 450,000 people developed the disease every year, and 270,000 of those are also living with HIV. TB is South Africa's leading cause of death. Between 63,000 and 89,000 people die from it every year; that's over TEN people every hour. WHO figures as per Maverick publication. Source https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/south-africa-perspective-tuberculosis
A total of 1.5 million people died from TB in 2018 (including 251 000 people with HIV). Worldwide, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious agent (above HIV/AIDS).In 2018, an estimated 10 million people fell ill with tuberculosis(TB) worldwide. 5.7 million men, 3.2 million women and 1.1 million children. There were cases in all countries and age groups. But TB is curable and preventable.
In 2018, 1.1 million children fell ill with TB globally, and there were 205 000 child deaths due to TB (including among children with HIV). Child and adolescent TB is often overlooked by health providers and can be difficult to diagnose and treat.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis and a health security threat. WHO estimates that there were 484 000 new cases with resistance to rifampicin - the most effective first-line drug, of which 78% had MDR-TB.
Ending the TB epidemic by 2030 is among the health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable.
TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.
About one-quarter of the world''s population has latent TB, which means people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not (yet) ill with the disease and cannot transmit the disease. Persons with compromised immune systems, such as people living with HIV, malnutrition or diabetes, or people who use tobacco, have a higher risk of falling ill.
People with active TB can infect 5 to 15 other people through close contact over a year.
Without proper treatment, 45% of HIV-negative people with TB on average and nearly all HIV-positive people with TB will die.
Tuberculosis mostly affects adults in their most productive years. However, all age groups are at risk. Over 95% of cases and deaths are in developing countries.
Could SA by some miracle dodge worst of Covid-19 curse?
A new study has found Countries with mandatory policies to vaccinate with bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) against tuberculosis register fewer coronavirus deaths than countries that don't have those policies. It may just turn out that most South Africans are safer because it's mandatory to have a Bacillus Calmette-Guèrin (BCG) vaccination when they are born to prevent life-threatening TB later on.Source By Alan Knott-Craig at https://www.biznews.com/inside-covid-19/2020/04/07/alan-knott-craig-covid-19-curse plus more here. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis
Road Casualties
Approximately 1.35 million people die in road crashes each year, on average, 3,700 people lose their lives every day on the roads worldwide. An additional 20-50 million worldwide suffer non-fatal injuries, often resulting in long-term disabilities.
More than 38,000 people die every year in crashes on U.S. roadways. The U.S. traffic fatality rate is 12.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. An additional 4.4 million are injured seriously enough to require medical attention. Road crashes are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people aged 1-54.
Approximately 18,000 South Africans die in road crashes each year, on average 50 lose their lives every day on the South African roads.
These are mostly deaths of people in the prime of their lives, not the elderly as caused by COVID-19.
The amazing thing is that we accept these casualties without thinking, while they could be greatly reduced at a small cost compared to lockdown by reducing car speeds drastically and making relatively costly technology such automatic collision detection technology compulsory in all new cars.
Flu Deaths
Worldwide, these annual epidemics are estimated to result in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 290 000 (794 per day) to 650 000 (1780- per day) from respiratory deaths. Hospitalization and death occur mainly among high-risk groups, with between 27,000 and 62,000 a year.Source https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)
Gun deaths in the USA
In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries (23.2 injuries per 100,000 people), and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms". Wikipedia.
HIV Deaths
South Africa estimates the number of deaths attributable to AIDS in 2017 as 126,755 or 25.03% of all South African deaths.About 330,000 South Africans died around 2006/7 because of Mbeki's government HIV policies. Cape Town - Over 11 870 new HIV infections among young women and girls were recorded by the Western Cape government between January 2018 and March 2019 alone.
According to the provincial Department of Health, this equates to an average of 791 new infections per month, while nationally 1200 new infections were recorded weekly.
Equally shocking is the number of girls aged between 10 and 14 - at 312 - who were recorded as having given birth between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019. And 10675 deliveries by girls aged between 15 and 19 were recorded over the same 12-month period nationally.
Source https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/news/saaids2019-shocking-hiv-stats-recorded-in-sa-27381499
HIC and COVID-19
"First data on HIV and Covid-19 offers tentative hope By Rebecca Davis• 1 May 2020" source South African Daily Maverick https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-05-01-first-data-on-hiv-and-covid-19-offers-tentative-hope/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=80895&tl_period_type=3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Coronavirus%20special%20edition%201%20May%202020&utm_content=Coronavirus%20special%20edition%201%20May%202020+CID_6c85399c68961837c5608144cbe53db5&utm_source=TouchBasePro&utm_term=First%20data%20on%20HIV%20and%20Covid-19%20offers%20tentative%20hope From very early reports it appears thatMalaria
Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, about 3000 children every day. Over one million people die from malaria each year, mostly children under five years of age, with 90 per cent of malaria cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. Source https://www.unicef.org/media/files/MALARIAFACTSHEETAFRICA.pdf "Furthermore, COVID-19 will compromise control efforts on epidemics like malaria; even more worrying is its potential to compromise access to life-saving antimalarial medicines and emergency care." Source https://www.mmv.org/newsroom/news/support-covid-19-responseMurders
There were 20,805 murders per year in South Africa or 57 per day. In the USA there were 15,498 homicides or 42 per day. Worldwide there were 412,450 murders or 1,130 per day.
Yet we do not know the real death or illness COVID-19 rates!
Many medical experts are questioning the death numbers per day. With so many of the fatalities the elderly, we do not know if they died from the coronavirus, or just with the coronavirus in their systems. Nor do we know how many deaths have occurred or been accelerated by the deceased having undiagnosed COVID-19 in their systems. Dateline 19 April 2020. Newly published literature shows COVID-19 much more widespread than thought, and NO MORE DEADLY THAN FLU, a new Stanford study suggests. What the study concludes is the fact that the mortality rate is much lower than it now believed and that many people have symptoms so mild they don't need to seek medical treatment and recover rather quickly. The WHO estimated the COVID-19 death rate at 3.4%, while the Stanford study puts it at .14%, about the same as flu. A Danish study published earlier this week using similar methods arrived at the same conclusion. The low German death rate, currently at 1.6%, is partly explained by a high rate of testing, giving further credence to the belief that the high death rates are misleading without extensive testing. Source https://www.rt.com/usa/486183-stanford-coronavirus-infection-rate-higher/ In 2003 when there was a heatwave in France, first reports said that there were dozens of deaths, mostly in care homes, later corrected to 100's. Some years later, when the funeral numbers were analysed, the estimate was about 15,000 extra deaths from the heatwave.Source https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200401-coronavirus-why-death-and-mortality-rates-differ