3 Inconvenient Truths About Coronovirus

There are three irrefutable truths we’ve learned about COVID-19 - all three tragic, but one that should provide hope.

First, COVID-19 is deadly. It’s already killed more Americans than were lost in the 10+ year Vietnam War.

We’ve seen disturbing images of U-Haul trucks full of bodies at morgues. The elderly left to die at nursing homes. Daily and hourly updates on how many more people have succombed.

There is no question that this is a nasty, deadly disease.

Second, our response to COVID-19 has decimated our economy.

Since idling the vast majority of our economy, millions have lost their jobs. People aren’t spending money, even though the government is printing insane amounts of it.

The worst is yet to come economically. The unemployed will default on debt. Millions of small businesses that were either just getting started or barely getting by will not survive. Even as the economy starts to reopen, many jobs and businesses are gone forever.

Third, COVID-19 is especially lethal among the elderly.

According to the CDC, 80% of all deaths have been among those aged 65 and older. It’s no secret that as we age our immune systems become less effective. We have a harder time fighting illness over time, and this disease has taken a huge, tragic toll on those that are older.

Where is the hope?

We’re focusing on the wrong thing.

We’re focused on reducing infections, when we should be focusing like a laser on reducing deaths.

What would happen if we fixated more on preventing deaths?

We would do all we reasonably could to protect the elderly from getting this virus. If fewer of them were to get the virus, fewer would die. Those of us who are younger would probably get COVID-19, and the overwhelming majority of us would recover from it - if we even knew we had it.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know how we would accomplish this. But if we focused on it, and we spent billions of dollars on finding a solution, I’m convinced that we would have fewer deaths, and our society could return to some semblance of normalcy.

Isn’t that what we all want?