The COVID mystery

"Where do we go from here? Continue to play duck and cover? Or tough it out by opening up the country again. We closed the country down, put our economy of life support, and still our numbers are terrible compared to most other countries."

Statistics are funny things. Keep playing with the numbers, and usually they can match what you want them to say. Or not. I have been very interested in the how and why of the number of cases and fatalities in the United States. We are taking a whooping from the virus, more so than most other countries. Not by a little, but by a lot. Let's first look at why the numbers we are seeing may not tell the entire story.

DNR and DNI. Most folks when they get into a care center, have the "talk" with the center staff. I can remember being with my Mom when she had the "talk". With zero coaching, my Mom told the staff that if something happened, like her heart stopping, she did not want to be resuscitated. The staff told us after the meeting, the vast majority of the residents make the same decision. So in the days of COVID, should a resident get it, the resident will either get better, or die. There is no going to the hospital and being put in an ICU or hooked up to a ventilator. Thus in Minnesota, of the almost 600 folks who have died from COVID, over 80% have been in long term care facilities.

But here is where the mystery comes in. In New York alone, over 21,000 people have died from this disease (or so it has been reported). Compare that with the country of Japan, where the death toll is only 624. The population of Japan is about 130,000,000 people. The population of New York is about 20,000,000. With the population of Japan being over six times bigger than New York (and both countries having major world cities - NYC and Tokyo), New York has over 20,000 more deaths from COVID - 19. Why?

What about South Korea? With a population of over 50,000,000 people, their death toll to date from COVID - 19 is 256 people. Heck, we have more deaths in Hennepin County than in the entire country of South Korea. Why? The virus hit Japan and South Korea before the United States, and our stats from this disease are terrible. Even Canada with a population of almost 36,000,000 has a death count of almost 5,000. Not as good as Japan and South Korea, but still much better than New York.

To me, the biggest mystery yet to be solved about COVID - 19 is not where it came from (we all know it was China), but why New York? What made New York ground zero for this thing. Plus, contact tracing has shown that many New Yorkers who fled New York, brought the virus with them to other parts of the country. Thus, we have a death count in America of just over 73,000. That is over 12 times more than Japan's, South Korea's and Canada's death toll combined.

Where do we go from here? Continue to play duck and cover? Or tough it out by opening up the country again. We closed the country down, put our economy of life support, and still our numbers are terrible compared to most other countries. I say open everything up, and now. I can't imagine things being any worse that they are now. Minnesota has shut down - South Dakota has remained open. South Dakota's economy and their COVID death toll numbers are both better than Minnesota's.