This isn't the month, to put it mildly, to pout about the absence of sports. By all accounts, and I'm talking universal agreement, the worst of what the coronavirus will do to our country is coming in April.
Thousands more will be afflicted. Thousands more will die.
And if we're lucky, awkward and awful as it'll sound, that'll be what scientists are calling the apex of the crisis. It won't mean the damage is done. Just that it's crested, at least for the current wave. There could still be another, per some projections, in the fall.
So, uh, hey, how's everyone's morning going?
Yeah?
Hm. Me, too.
Pull up a chair. Let's talk. But real talk only, Pittsburgher-to-Pittsburgher style, with no baloney.
I've done a lot of reading in recent weeks. That doesn't make me an expert or even a pretend expert. I'm a sports writer waiting to resume my role in shamefully defending Bob Nutting, Mike Tomlin and Dominik Simon from the masses. It's all I know in life.
Still, presuming my perspective would have worth to anyone, I've compiled all of that reading into one singular concept: We really, really need to stop people from dying.
Because once we do that, at the risk of coming across as callous, then we'll be dealing with an illness rather than a killer. And from there, we can shift the fight into the much safer stage of simply managing illnesses via treatments for symptoms and the like. If we're sick for a few days, we can live with this thing. Literally. But if it's killing people at some inordinate level, as is currently the case, we can't.
First things first: We need an accurate mortality rate.
We don't have one. Don't suggest that we do because we don't. And we can't, actually, until we have a much, much broader swath of coronavirus testing that isn't remotely available right now. Until then, these are the only absolute numbers in the equation, as of 11 p.m. Saturday:
U.S. population: 329,450,000
Tested for coronavirus: 1,623,807
Tested positive: 305,755
Deaths from coronavirus: 8,314
That's all we know for certain, per the independent CovidTracking.com. Those four figures and nothing else.
The common math being done on this is to take the number of positive tests, divide it by the number of deaths and produce a fatality rate. And within that formula, it's a horrifying 2.7 percent. Infinitely worse than the flu or most any other virus anyone can cite, even historically.
But now look at the total number of tests administered. It's less than half a percent of our entire population, or 0.49 percent to be precise. And of that 0.49 percent, it's safe to say that the immense majority of those have been people who've shown the strongest symptoms.
Well, part of what makes this coronavirus so sinister is that roughly three-quarters of everyone who gets it shows mild symptoms or none at all. Which likely means, logically, that we haven't tested even the tiniest fraction of people who've either got this or already had it. And that, in turn, means we haven't got the faintest clue what the real fatality rate is. Not yet.
We need that data. We need so much more data. And once we have it, we'll be so much better equipped for this fight.
Since the coronavirus is having a monstrously disproportionate impact on the elderly, how might that mortality rate be affected by a hardened focus on caring and precautions for those 60 and older?
Since the most devastating fatality rates have occurred in the Wuhan province of China, the northern region of Italy and now New York City, in large part because all three medical systems where overwhelmed, how might they be affected by better preparedness? Meaning minus the cataclysmic flooding of emergency rooms, respirators and, above all, doctors and nurses?
Since those who've already had and overcome the coronavirus have demonstrated antibodies and encouraging early immunity, how might that mortality rate be affected by more people having beaten it down?
We need that data. I could go on all day, but that data will go a long, long way toward turning questions like these and countless others into vital answers.
Back to my point: We need to stop people from dying.
According to a 2019 study by Johns Hopkins University, the common flu kills between 291,000 and 646,000 globally each year. In the U.S., that range is 12,000 to 61,000. We live with the flu. We don't allow it to change our lives. The coronavirus, so far, is reported to have killed at least 64,000 globally and, again, 8,314 in the U.S.
Important pause: Don't dare compare those directly, definitely not now when the coronavirus still, clearly, has a long, unfortunate way to go. I've seen people doing that, and it's as dumb as it is dangerous. There's no model anywhere that doesn't point powerfully toward the coronavirus overtaking the flu in deaths for 2020.
However, if the common flu's fatality rate is the current, acceptable bar for our comfort level, the one we can live with as a society, then yeah, it probably should be where we save space on the figurative C-drive for future comparisons.
Stop people from dying. Render the coronavirus just another virus, just another flu.
From there, let's work toward being a hell of a lot more efficient at care, at pain management, at prevention to make the coronavirus condition itself more tolerable or, better yet, to make it pass more quickly. No one ever seems to talk about medications, the kind we buy over the counter to help us get through a spell of sickness, and that's also because of all the uncertainty. There isn't one yet that's been formally approved, but there's anecdotal evidence here and there, and I'll bet there's one of these that's being administered commonly before long.
If we can achieve those two things, no one needs to wait out the mandatory year or 18 months for a vaccine, much less complete eradication. There won't be one grand day where everyone raises their arms triumphantly and returns to regular life. There just won't. But it can and likely will, I think, be gradual.
And great.
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DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS[/caption]
• That's life up there. That's the view from our family's place in the Strip. We really like it here, and the view over the Allegheny -- 16th Street Bridge, the old Heinz stacks, Troy Hill -- is obviously pleasant. But that's it. And for someone accustomed to bouncing all over the continent to produce content for you, yeah, it can get a little nuts.
• I'm bleeding for our local businesses. I'm sorry, maybe it's just where we are, but that feels like it's hit so much harder than any other facet. I know that's out of whack, even out of line, but I've always been honest.
Being a born-and-bred Pittsburgher, I'm provincial by nature and unapologetically so. Thus, for me, when this subject arises, it's not about banks and Wall Street. It's about Wholey's and Smallman Street. And Penn Avenue. And Market Square. And all through our city, seeing places that were built up by prideful, hard-working folks, and wondering what'll become of them after all this ends ... that's the punch to the gut in the moment.
• The entire world briefly looked toward our little corner in the past week because of the extraordinary work of scientists at the University of Pittsburgh toward developing a vaccine.
Which is amazing, even aside from all the aforementioned provinciality.
Read the above report, by former colleague Luis Fabregas at the Tribune-Review, to see why, out of 50-plus ongoing vaccine studies, this one's got maybe the best -- and safest -- potential of all of them.
But note, too, that there's never been a vaccine in human history that was whipped up in less than 18 months. The layers and layers of testing required to mass-produce could conceivably be condensed to a year, but not less.
• If Pitt rescues civilization twice within the span of a century, all civilization should owe back is to build Oakland a football-only stadium. Floating several hundred feet in the air, of course, since we couldn't constrict the hospitals doing all the rescuing.
• Furthermore, if Pitt rescues civilization, everyone else will be required to pronounce quarantine 'corn-teen.' In honor of us. We don't ask much.
• Speaking of Luis, when he tweeted this out the other day ...
Coronavirus “not as intensely active” in Pittsburgh region, says Dr. Don Yealy, UPMC’s chair of emergency medicine. UPMC’s community surveillance not showing widespread activity: 386 of 4,100 tests (9%) positive. Most at UPMC hospitals not requiring ICU or ventilator care.
— Luis Fabregas (@LuisTrib) April 2, 2020
... there was mindboggling blowback that he'd have the audacity to -- gasp -- tell the truth that things, to date, are going fairly well in our region.
"Why say this and give people the license to go out?" one tweeter retorted.
Here's my own retort to the retort: Neither reporters nor doctors nor even government officials should be in the business of lying. And since I'm neither of the latter two, staying in my own lane, if anyone expects such behavior from journalists, then they're doing their own small part to kill a profession that's vital to who we are as Americans.
I prefer the truth. And from there, I prefer that the truth goes out to people who are smart enough to handle it properly.
• Not that we couldn't stand some good news. I'd just rather have it be real.
What's immediately above was good news. Pittsburgh's done well, even if, again, it's just to date. Clint Hurdle used to always tell the Pirates, 'Enjoy your victories,' and I loved that. He'd emphasize that, if you moved on from a victory too quickly to the next day -- always a temptation in the daily baseball grind -- you'd risk losing a sense for why you're competing in the first place.
We've done well so far. Let's keep doing well.
• The mask order was the first to freak me out. I took all the rest well. Not that.
But there's also been the drip-drip-drip effect. This gets taken away. Then that gets taken away. Then something else that you were sure wasn't going to get taken away.
Can't say this enough, my friends. Talk about it. You aren't alone. Share it with family or a co-worker. Or right here. But talk about it.
• We'll get there. We will.
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