Recently a relative forwarded a post from Douglas G. Frank - Dr. Frank Models. A person asked Dr. Frank "What would it take for you to support a [coronavirus] vaccine Dr. Frank?"
Dr. Frank posted a long response that I won't copy here.* But I'll summarize and then respond. Two key premises of his position:
1. The reward has to be worth the risk
2. Polio is not Covid and the reward [for taking the polio vaccine] was worth the risk (and the price).
Of course that led into a long dissertation on why the reward for taking the Covid vaccine is not worth the risk, with a lot of mathematical equations on what percent of the US population has been infected and what percent has died and speculating on what value the vaccine will be. And he also tossed in a suggestion that Covid will just fade away if we don't vaccinate.
Let's make one obvious point first. He's commenting about a vaccine or vaccines that have not yet been approved and for which no side-effects have been described. Nice of him to say they suck without data.
But I was in a mood when I saw the post and just had to respond. And here is that response:
First of all his figures are wrong.
- He said 140,000 people have died. Wrong. Almost 175,000 people have died as I write this and the number is continuing to rise.
- His statement that 94% of Americans did not get Coronavirus is wrong - the number of people who didn't get Coronavirus gets smaller every day as more people get the virus.
Dr. Frank's analysis also ignores reports that people who had Coronavirus and recovered are seeing relapses and are suffering crippling effects that are ruining their lives, similar to the way that polio didn't kill everyone it also left people crippled in wheelchairs.
He's saying do the math and decide the risk - well his math is already wrong. How many people have to die or be crippled by this disease before he admits that the death toll has now risen to a level where the calculation is more like polio and he's in favor of the virus and how many of those people would have lived if they had gotten the vaccine when it came available. Is he going to look back in three years and say "Gee I was wrong and if we had taken the vaccines those 500,000 people would be alive and the other X million people wouldn't be crippled. Sorry about that."
Second, he completely fails to acknowledge the damage done to our country by Coronavirus. Our country went into complete lock down for almost two months. Parts of the country stayed in that lock down for longer than that. (and by the way - that's a big reason why only 175,000 people died of the virus so far).
It's not just the people dying of Covid, it's the people losing their jobs and likely their homes. I read that article and come away with Dr. Frank is saying "You're kicked out of your home, you have no job, and your family is starving. But that's okay, because since you didn't get Coronavirus let's continue to live in fear and no one should get vaccinated." Or "More people are committing suicide, but that's okay because they didn't die of Coronavirus so they don't count toward my calculation and let's not get vaccinated." Or "More kids are presenting in the hospital with signs of physical abuse but that's okay physical abuse is not Coronavirus so let the fear continue to dominate rather than vaccinate."
President Trump is trying to moderate the reaction to Coronavirus, he's offered "aspirational views" that are hopeful and look at the beating he takes every single day and this week (the week of the DNC convention) it's worse. President Trump's been blamed multiple times this week at the Democrat convention for being responsible for every single one of the 175,000 deaths. Biden, Obama, Cuomo, Warren - every speaker is saying Trump isn't doing enough. So trying to moderate the fear just kicks the media and half the population into a frenzy.
And what happens if Biden is elected? He's saying Trump isn't doing enough. Do you think under Biden the Government will be less intrusive about regulating our lives or more? He said if he's elected we'll have a national mask mandate.
And what about the average people? Everyday there are reports people are already ostracizing and, in some cases, physically beating up other people who don't wear masks. Do you think that is going to decrease if the Government and the media stokes the fear machine? What is going to happen to people who don't get the vaccine and put others at risk in an environment where fear rules. Do you think Joe Biden is going to let people not get the vaccine? Maybe you won't have to get vaccinated if you're marching in a BLM demonstration and peacefully trying to burn down government buildings while people are inside.
None of that is reflected in Dr. Frank's analysis. Medicine doesn't exist in a vacuum but his evaluation of the Coronavirus does.
And this is not going to fade away. Smallpox was fading away until people refused to get vaccinated or have their kids vaccinated and we went from having zero cases in the US and the disease almost eradicated in the world to numbers of cases that increased every year the past few years.
People I know in the veterinary practice say Coronavirus has plagued cats for at least 40 years, probably longer, so if people don't get vaccinated, we'll continue to see deaths for another 40 years or so. Is continuous deaths for decade after decade what we call "fading away?
And consider not just the death toll, consider the cost to our health care system. There is the financial cost of treating all those people, the cost to the health workers who are burning out from being under such stress, the cost to hospital systems of having to support this and postpone other care they deliver to patients and the cost to those patients who can't get care for serious medical conditions not named Coronavirus.
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