Andra tutto bene

A little over a week ago, my mother told me she was flying Washington DC to see her friends and brother. We don’t yet know what the effect of those two flights on her health will be, but at the time I challenged her on whether this was sensible given the virus. She said, “It hasn’t really hit here. In this state there has only been one case.” “Mom, how can you know how many cases there are if no one is being tested?” She admitted that there had been little testing due to a lack of test kits. However, she felt strongly that this visit to see those of her generation dearest to her was worth the risk and I accept that.

One week later, people with symptoms are still being denied testing so I’d like to make several points on this topic.

1. Not testing is a way of hiding the severity. If a government doesn’t test, there is no way that anyone can have any idea of how many are affected. And if they don’t know how many are affected, they won’t know how many are dying from it. Because it’s a respiratory illness, those who die from COVID 19 without being diagnosed as having the virus will be registered as having died of pneumonia. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day for a total so far of 250,000 in a population of 51 million. As of yesterday, the US had tested a total of 12,000 people out of a population of over 330 million. With a virus that lives up to 3 hours in the air and up to 72 hours on surfaces, how can the infection rate in the US be so low? It can’t be.
2. Not testing means that the virus will claim more lives than necessary. Testing not only tells you how many are infected but where the outbreaks are. This means that strategies can be put in place to control the spread and to use health resources effectively. These strategies are key to keeping hospitals from becoming overwhelmed by spikes in cases. In northern Italy, especially Milan, doctors describe war-like conditions. They’re swamped with too many patients needing too few resources. People who might have survived are dying. However, since the “stay at home” measures implemented in Italy just a few days ago, the increase in the number of cases is slowing. The strict measures of social distancing may be starting to have an effect all ready. Strict criteria for who gets tested, on the other hand, will only increase the spread.
3. Not testing is senicide. What is senicide? It’s the abandonment to death or killing of the elderly. It is clear that COVID 19 is more deadly to the elderly than to any other age group in the population. I have been disgusted to hear that some government leaders have voiced that this virus will mean they won’t have to pay out so many pensions in the future. The UK is alone in not adopting social distancing measures and instead is pursuing a policy which they say is based on the scientific theory of ‘herd immunity.’ This theory was infrequently used before vaccines to describe how – over 3 generations – an affected population can build up resistance to certain infections because the weaker die and the stronger build up immunity. The term became more commonly used to explain how vaccines work. Without a COVID 19 vaccine, however, we are back to the older definition. With a virus that is about 20 times as deadly as the flu, this basically means let (by some estimates) about 1 million people die in the UK without trying to manage the disease with the hopes that enough strong people will develop anti-bodies (not certain by any means) to shield the few who don’t have them. While the prime minister jokes about ‘survival of the fittest,’ I’d title this policy ‘Senicide.’
4. Not testing is a way for governments to be able to claim that the epidemic is not as severe as it is in other places and therefore not to take political or economic responsibility for the consequences. I will leave you to decide whether your government is taking it seriously, but in any case, I urge you all to practise social distancing as much as possible, to wash your hands often and to not touch your faces. Do not panic, do not buy more than you need for 2-3 weeks (including toilet paper), be considerate of others. We are a community, a global community, faced with this. Today, a voluntary team of doctors arrived from Shanghai with much needed ventilators and masks to help overwhelmed doctors in Italian hospitals. Today at 6 pm, people all over Italy sang and played music from their windows. Today children drew rainbow posters that read:  Andra tutto bene — Everything’s going to be alright.