“The nation has come together to applaud for the country’s healthcare workers for the second time in as many weeks in a show of solidarity with NHS (National Health Service or hospital employees) fighting the Coronavirus.

People across the country headed to their gardens, windows and balconies to offer cheers and applause to doctors, nurses and other NHS staff, replicating similar shows of support in other countries including India, Spain and Italy.”

The clapping was also joined by relative quiet from the nation’s broadcasters – with BBC One, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 all agreeing to pause broadcasting as the clocks struck eight o’clock to share images of the event from across the nation.

Isn’t that nice!  Solidarity. Nations coming together to cheer their valiant healthcare workers. Of course, healthcare workers are valuable and do necessary and important work, but that isn’t the issue; not the issue at all. And not all are so valiant. Many have nothing to do now since hospitals are only taking in patients for emergencies and Covid-19 while cancer patients get no treatment.

These morons hanging out of windows and whooping and clapping like Baboons are virtue signalling.  They are saying to all their neighbours; “Look at me. What a good, obedient citizen I am. I am doing the RIGHT thing’.  The BBC and other media told me.

I have another take on it. These idiots are basically clapping and cheering the demise of their own countries and signalling their satisfaction with their illegal house arrest. They are clapping and cheering as millions are put at imminent risk of starvation from these lockdowns which we are told will “SAVE LIVES?”

The actual figures are appalling. According to the United Nations About 265 million people around the world are forecast to be facing acute food shortages as a direct consequence of lockdowns; a 100% increase from the 130 million estimated to suffer severe food shortages in 2019.  Of those 30 million are likely to die if nothing is done.  THINK, FOR JUST ONE SECOND. 190,000 DEAD COVID-19. 30,000,000 STARVATION. ‘SAVE LIVES’.

In all likelihood Covid-19 will at worst show a 0.1 mortality rate similar to seasonal flu.

None of the people whooping and clapping are questioning the actions taken by their governments; indeed, many are actually enjoying them, seeing no further than the end of their noses and oblivious to where this all is leading.  The International Monetary Fund has warned that the world faces its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and yet still the lockdowns persist, as we wait for our saviour; Bill Gates, his vaccines and the Digital ID that will come with it.

Jobs lost will never be recovered; small business closed and gone forever; and the meagre earnings of people in the developing world are reduced to nothing as they have no buyers for their goods or services. This is the logic of the lockdowns to ‘SAVE LIVES’.

Let’s examine the apocalyptic figures that caused such draconian measures to be put in place globally and compare Covid-19 to the Spanish Flu, a genuine pandemic of 1918.

The population of the world at that time was approximately 1.8 billion people.  Experts differ greatly on how many deaths were caused globally, but the range is 1.8 million at the low end to 100 million at the high end. This would mean that Spanish Flu killed between 1-5.4% of the world population. No lockdowns. No economies destroyed.

So, what about Covid-19?  The world population today is approximately 7.8 billion. As of writing, deaths attributed to Covid-19 stand at 190,000, if you believe them and ignore the fact that nearly ALL are due to comorbidity, which I will explain later.  This means that as of writing Covid-19 has allegedly killed 0.025% of the world’s population.  Not even near seasonal flu which kills between 290,000-600,000 people each year, and has an average mortality rate of 0.1, FOUR times that of Covid-19 at present.

Now smarty pants reading this are going to say; that’s because we mitigated like our saviours in the white coats told us to do, but there is a problem with this to.

Not all epidemiologists are on the payroll of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and their private charity the World Health Organisation. Some are actually honest and experts from the USA, Germany to Italy, and even here in the UK have come out in a chorus refuting the measures taken and challenging the dubious models used as the excuse to remove nations liberties. Even how the deaths are reported is different and unusual.

In the UK Dr John Lee, consultant histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital and formerly clinical professor of pathology at Hull York Medical School questions how the deaths for Covid-19 are reported.

“There’s a potentially serious problem: the way that deaths are recorded. If someone dies of a respiratory infection in the UK, the specific cause of the infection is not usually recorded, unless the illness is a rare ‘notifiable disease’.

So, the vast majority of respiratory deaths in the UK are recorded as bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, old age or a similar designation. We don’t really test for flu, or other seasonal infections. If the patient has, say, cancer, motor neurone disease or another serious disease, this will be recorded as the cause of death, even if the final illness was a respiratory infection. This means UK certifications normally under-record deaths due to respiratory infections.

Now, look at what has happened since the emergence of Covid-19. The list of notifiable diseases has been updated. This list — as well as containing smallpox (which has been extinct for many years) and conditions such as anthrax, brucellosis, plague and rabies (which most UK doctors will never see in their entire careers) — has now been amended to include Covid-19. But not flu. That means every positive test for Covid-19 must be notified, in a way that it just would not be for flu or most other infections.

Few tests have been carried out in patients with mild symptoms. This means that the number of positive tests will be far lower than the number of people who have had the disease. Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has been trying to stress this.

He suggested that the real figure for the number of cases could be 10 to 20 times higher than the official figure. If he’s right, the headline death rate due to this virus will be 10 to 20 times lower than it appears to be from the published figures.”

Again, in the UK, Dr John Oxford, virologist and Professor at Queen Mary, University of London. He is a leading expert on influenza, including bird flu and the 1918 Spanish Influenza, and HIV/AIDS. He also disagrees with the media hysteria.

“Personally, I would say the best advice is to spend less time watching TV news which is sensational and not very good. Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic. In this case we have had 8000 deaths this last year in the ‘at risk’ groups viz over 65% people with heart disease etc. I do not feel this current Covid will exceed this number. We are suffering from a media epidemic!”

One last example. German-American researcher and professor of epidemiology, Professor Knut Wittkowski worked for 15 years on the Epidemiology of HIV and then spent a further 20 years at the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University, New York.  He also disagrees with the government advisers both here in the UK, Professor Neil Ferguson, and in the USA, Anthony S. Fauci. Both these men at departments with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children. So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible.

We are experiencing all sorts of counterproductive consequences of not well-thought- through policy.

I have been an epidemiologist for 35 years, and I have been modelling epidemics for 35 years. It’s a pleasure to have the ability to help people to understand, but it’s a struggle to get heard.”

That brings me to Indonesia which I believe offers real hope. Indonesia is a huge country with a large and predominantly young population.  Data clearly shows that covid-19 is fatal only to the very elderly and immune impaired. Lockdown is the WRONG policy and the sooner the Indonesian government realises that allowing herd immunity to develop while protecting the very elderly and vulnerable, the better Indonesia will emerge from the crisis. The media hype and lies need to be ignored and discarded.

The character of the nation is to be respectful to their elders and get along in communities, but when they are faced with injustice they will stand up.  My hope is that they will look at the real evidence and act accordingly. If the people do not accept tyrannical edicts, the government cannot enforce them.

One more very important aspect of Indonesia separates it from the majority of the West. In Indonesia God still exists and is at the centre of many peoples lives. It is this faith in God above all which makes control so difficult. In the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe God was lost many decades ago. These countries put their faith in government.

Only America still has people that live faith-based lives and they are rising up against the lockdowns.

As Indonesia enters Ramadan it is my sincere belief that they can come together truly as a nation and treat covid-19 as it should have been by all countries in the world.  A severe flu, no more and no less. For certain, they will not be leaning out of their windows and cheering on their own demise.

“Disclaimer: The author takes full responsibility on the content of this opinion”.

National leadership is the art of motivating a group of citizens (not subjects) to act toward achieving a common goal. Our leaders must weigh a multitude of inputs and make bold policy decisions to promote human flourishing in the days ahead. We must hold them accountable to this duty.

Looking Out the Front Windshield

It is not the right time for a retrospective on what should have been done differently in this crisis, but now is a critically important time for us to be focused on how our national posture must shift from being ‘on our heels’ to ‘leaning forward’ into what we do best as a nation. It’s important to note that my views are not framed primarily in economic outcomes.

Our decisions as a nation can’t be directed solely (or even mostly) at outcomes like GDP growth or stock prices. These metrics matter as they eventually impact human flourishing, but they are secondary to our leadership mandate to do the most good for the most people possible. Our primary mandate must remain focused on maximization of human flourishing, which includes both short- and long-term health and wellness outcomes.

Our Current Reality

The question now is whether we believe our healthcare system will actually be overrun in the near-term. With perhaps a few exceptions for short periods of time, we have not experienced a shortage of workers, ICU beds, or lifesaving equipment.

In fact, utilization rates have fallen dramatically in every healthcare system I have spoken with. Hospitals are going to be against the ropes financially due to their proactive freeing of capacity, as well as patient-driven cancellations.

Most systems are facing 25-50% Q2 revenue shortfalls, and this topline miss will translate to huge losses given the low margins and fixed overhead inherent within healthcare. A number of systems are beginning to furlough or lay off employees due to this reality. A governmental bailout will almost certainly be necessary.

Some are arguing that the surge of patients is still in the pipeline, though experts increasingly agree that is less likely with each passing day. Recent modeling adjustments have revealed forecasting challenges, as the estimates were revised from 100,000-240,000 deaths to 60,000 deaths within a few days’ time earlier this week. It’s hard to read this kind of data in linear form, so I encourage you to look at the U.S. logarithmic charts on infections and deaths available at this data source.

While hospitals await the COVID-19 ‘surge’, hundreds of thousands of patients awaiting elective procedures are wondering when their procedures can be rescheduled. The term ‘elective procedure’ may imply ‘optional’, but that is hardly the case. These procedures include cardiac catheterizations (diagnostic and interventional), heart surgeries, joint procedures & replacements, back & neck surgeries, colonoscopies, gastric endoscopies, and many interventional radiology procedures, to name a few.

In other words, we’re not talking about patients waiting to get a breast augmentation and tummy tuck. These are significant procedures that will have important diagnostic and therapeutic implications for patients.

Continuing to Quarantine = Deepening the Ditch

In the same way that lives depended on quick action a month ago to curtail mass gatherings where widespread infections might have otherwise occurred, we must have the same sense of urgency in moving back towards a functioning society. Every day that we remain in shutdown carries a cost in human flourishing – both death and other forms of suffering.

While death and suffering is not directly linked to the economy or employment statistics (17 million citizens filed for unemployment in the last three weeks, and more jobless claims are enroute), there are well documented indirect linkages tied to those economic statistics – problems like suicide, homicide, incidence of domestic violence, depression, child abuse, substance abuse, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, and other forms of abuse/illness which are correlated with unemployment and economic loss.

These issues are particularly prevalent among citizens who don’t have access to a healthy bank account, or a 401K reserve, or a stable nuclear and extended family, or resource networks which can provide support in a time of need. These problems must be treated with great concern, as they are second-order effects of our current public policy, which will show up and carry a decades-long tail of negative after-effects.

An argument I’ve heard recently is that “We can’t possibly put a price tag on a human life.” While the essence of this comment resonates, the reality is more nuanced. This is an imperfect illustration, but each year ~1,250,000 people die in automotive wrecks. Most of these are, presumably, avoidable.

Given the driver safety statistics, why do we let citizens <21 or >80 years old drive at all? Why don’t we limit the hours that can be driven by each person in each day, to reduce drowsy driving? Why don’t we forcibly retire old vehicles that are heavy and/or unsafe (as Singapore does)?

Why are people even allowed to drive routes where safer mass transportation options exist? Why do we allow the manufacturing of cars which drive >75 MPH? Why aren’t there full canopy airbags in every vehicle? Why isn’t a breathalyzer required to start a car at all times?

Why don’t we have more LifeFlight helicopters available to accelerate patients from serious car wrecks to the hospital? Why don’t we mandate Tesla-style autopilot for ALL cars, which would presumably be far less expensive than the $6,000+ for every man, woman, and child in the country (which we are spending via $2 trillion in stimulus funds)?

Some of these questions are, of course, silly. But the facts are that there is data about the cost of mandating safety in a $$’s-per-life equation. The metric of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) is used extensively in healthcare, to help with the economic evaluation of medical interventions. Typical benchmarks within the U.S. range from $50,000-150,000 per QALY.

Based on $2 trillion in stimulus and an estimated 60,000 deaths, our current level of stimulus is suggesting just over $30 million per anticipated death in expenditures. This is not apples-to-apples, but the raw numbers are what they are and worth noticing. My main point is that there is a balance we must discern as a society between Short-Term Outcomes and Long-Term Outcomes. Safety and Affordability. Community Security vs. Individual Liberty.

There are anecdotes on this last tradeoff of Security vs. Liberty which can be drawn from the South Korean and Singaporean responses to COVID-19. Here in the U.S, we could absolutely save lives if we submitted to government-directed surveillance and a more militarized tact, but that approach would not be accepted by Western citizens as it was in Asia – A Brave New World is seared into our memories.

Thankfully, both political parties seem to grasp this, and understand the dangers of letting that surveillance genie out of the bottle. There are real tensions to be managed at a public policy level, and lives saved in the near-term isn’t the only metric that matters. Long-term flourishing and individual liberties matter. A lot.

A Draft Blueprint for Restarting Society

As citizens, it is our responsibility to agitate for restarting society. We must be able to engage in a meaningful dialogue that balances both near-term and longer-term human flourishing objectives. Should all of us immediately go back to life just as it was before?

No. Things are going to be different. Much of what we’ve implemented must continue in some modified form. COVID-19 case volumes are going to go up as we restart society, but hopefully with a tilt towards those less likely to require hospitalization.

Those more likely to require hospitalization if they become infected – the sick and/or elderly – should continue to self-quarantine until we have a better handle on local conditions through widespread testing, and a solid treatment protocol. As fellow citizens, we must find ways to love and care for these brothers and sisters as they remain isolated.

As the Gospel of Matthew (32:37-40) instructs us, other than loving God, our greatest commandment is to love our neighbor. The rest of the Gospel hangs on those two commandments, and that’s an important reminder as we head into this Easter weekend.

What we cannot do is say, “Well, until we have a vaccine, we’re just going to be living like this.” That is a recipe for utter disaster. The risks and rates of infection are widely varied in different countries, states, and communities. Blanket policies will paralyze our movement, and we must focus on a more rapid and nuanced return to functionality.

This restart could look like:

– Back to Work for Most – All citizens under the age of 65 and without an underlying condition will aim to return to work on Monday, April 20th. Depending on the nature of each work environment, rotational WFH and/or a 3rd shift may be necessary to reduce personnel density. Americans want to work, and will find a way to make things work.

– Continued Quarantine for Some – All workers over the age of 65 or with an underlying condition will remain in self-quarantine until conditions are deemed safe by local authorities – hopefully at some point in May. Since these are the patients more likely to end up in the hospital, appropriate discretion should be used with regard to continued social distancing.

– Health Checks and Cleaning Protocols – Everyone arriving in an office / factory / other group setting will be screened and use appropriate protective equipment while in public. If not already completed, cleaning protocols will be updated.

– Public Transit and Events – All those using public transit will wear protective equipment and undergo some form of low-friction screening. Depending on local conditions and other factors, state and local governments will determine what is sensible in the way of events and gatherings.

– Testing and Monitoring – Testing will be made available for anyone exhibiting symptoms, and case volumes will be monitored for any sign of meaningful expansion which could overwhelm a local healthcare system. Given measures 1) thru 5) above, the likelihood of an outbreak such as what occurred in China/Italy/NYC becomes near-zero. If facts on the ground evolve negatively, we adjust and proceed on a local or regional basis.

My hope and prayer is that, as citizens, we recognize the data that is unfolding and have the courage to quickly step back towards a functional economy along the lines of these draft thoughts. This will be an incredibly challenging journey, but we must quickly begin for the well-being of our fellow citizens, and the future of our nation.

America is a beacon of freedom and light for citizens all over the world, and now is a great time for us to step forward into that leadership.

“Disclaimer: The author takes full responsibility on the content of this opinion.”