COVID-19 Part IV – Statistics in Perspective
March 20th 2020
Since my first blog on this topic I have kept a close eye on the statistics related to so called “infected people” and those that have died during this outbreak and I have to say some very interesting facts have emerged.
Of course during this time I have received countless reports from everywhere so it has taken some time to review everything and to gain some perspective.
Generally speaking, the mortality rate globally has been 4.1% of 244,500 diagnosed cases, with Italy as the main contributor to this rate coming in at 8.2% so we need to examine closely how and why this is happening in Italy. Especially now with China not reporting any new cases and South Korea reporting a decline in diagnosed cases.
Originally the death toll was at the usual 2.1% for any given flu season regardless of which country was experiencing it. However when the numbers came in from Italy it doubled.
Currently in Canada, we have 873 diagnosed cases, with 12 that died which is 1.4% mortality rate. In the USA, there are 11,000 diagnosed with 178 dead and a mortality rate of 1.6%. These numbers are actually less than what we expect in way of a mortality rate in any given flu season.
I’ll get to “how” people are diagnosed later in this blog but first we must look at why this happened in Italy. In my first blog on this subject I mentioned that although it was difficult to ascertain the collective cause of the shock the population in China experienced, we did manage to make some sense of what was going on prior to the onset of this situation and what was resolved just shortly before the so called outbreak. Please refer to my first 2 blogs in this series.
COVID-19 Part II – Testing for a Virus
Treatment for COVID-19
The subsequent antiviral “treatment” Italian patients are getting may be responsible for the accelerated death toll. Which from my perspective as a former consultant in alternative medicine makes a great deal of sense because we are looking at the side effects and interaction of drugs that are given to elderly patients with a severe flu that already have predisposing medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure which they are already getting medication for. So along with the flu we are likely looking at a severe case of drug interaction in elderly patients.
What I found surprising was that the drug of choice in China called “Chloroquine (Aralen)” is actually an anti – Malaria drug which is a mosquito borne disease caused by a parasite.
More recently in Italy an anti – viral drug called “Ribovirin” was used where the side effects include liver and kidney impairment and severe anemia. It is actually used for treatment in Hepatitis C.
Also, when I looked at the average age of patients that were succumbing to the flu in Italy they were 81.3 years old indicating that they already had some health challenges prior to developing the flu.
The collective conflict in northern Italy
Thankfully I know someone who speaks Italian that has been doing research in all areas involving the outbreak which is primarily in northern Italy. From the GNM perspective it makes perfect sense.
Codigno a major agricultural region located in northern Italy has experienced several severe climatic changes over the last few years from extreme weather, including several damaging hailstorms, heavy rainfall, insect infestations and damage from wild animals likely looking for food in these extreme environmental conditions.
Codigno’s agricultural area took an excess of a costly 11 million Euro hit between July and August of 2019 then the devastation continued through October of last year. That means the livelihood of farmers in that region was dramatically affected by what they experienced.
Their particular resolution came when the recent financial numbers came in at 800 million Euros from agricultural production from the region despite what they experienced last year.
Other geographic areas in northern Italy that experienced “pockets” affected by the flu were located right next to the Po and Dora rivers which also experienced devastating flooding over the last year as the result of climatic changes. It was so severe that more than 210 mm of rain fell in October over 3 days and another 110 mm in November over the same period of time. The property damage was horrendous. Scientists called this a “major anomaly”.
I can very well imagine the relief everyone experienced after the big cleanup and a normal existence returned to this region.
The threat to their existence
What I find interesting in both the scenarios between China and Italy is that they also experienced a “threat to their existence” conflict which will put them into the kidney collecting tubule syndrome which is what creates a fluid retention in the organs, in this case it is the lungs that are undergoing the healing phase of a conflict that will present as “pneumonia”.
To add to this we must also consider that the people of that region in Italy collectively experienced a water/ fluidity conflict simultaneously which actually means that not only the kidney collecting tubules were affected but also the renal parenchyma which is responsible for renal hypertension (high blood pressure). I’m sure that this likely exasperated the existing condition in a senior. Add to this the anti – viral drug Ribovirin and we are looking at a lethal mix.
I realize this is a lot of information, even for the well informed GNM student, however as I began to muddle through all the data I received, a clearer picture began to emerge.
Now we must look at cause and effect not to mention the current testing methods that are being used to diagnose this “novel” corona virus.