You’re not going to die. Seriously, the chances of dying from COVID-19 are remote and not much worse than the flu.
On September 10, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its updated “Infection Fatality Ratio.” It calculates the survival rate based on all they’ve learned from the onset of the COVID crisis. The numbers likely won’t matter to those people driving around with windows up, gloves on in their own car, peering over their mask at the world. I’ve concluded that their get up is some kind of body armor for people with problems that will never respond to even the most effective COVID vaccine.
But for the rest of us, the CDC’s conclusions are terrific news.
You’re not going to die. The chance of COVID felling you falls in the category of those extreme scenarios like a brick falling on your head as you walk through a city. It may happen. It has happened. But the chances of it happening are so minimal we don’t shut our cities down the way the COVID panic and government orders have.
The CDC’s lead-up to its conclusions rolls out various scenarios, parameters and qualifications. Go ahead and take the time to read the full report for a deeper understanding. Thankfully, they reduce the verbiage to a “current best estimate.” Here’s their table. We’ll concentrate on the column entitled “Scenario 5: Current Best Estimate.”
Now we’ll do the math for you:
If you are no older than nineteen years of age and you become infected with the virus, you have a 99.97% chance of surviving.
If you are twenty to forty-nine years of age, you have a 99.98% chance of surviving a COVID infection.
If your are fifty to sixty-nine years of age, your chance of surviving is 99.95%.
And, even at 70 years and older, your chance of surviving a bout of the latest novel Chinese virus is 94.6%.
Whew. Those odds should make any sensible person feel a whole better than they do after watching the always breathless evening news.
Now, that is not to say we shouldn’t continue to be responsible and compassionate. For every 100 of the most elderly senior citizens who get the virus, about 5 of them may die. That is a serious stat.
The rest of the CDC’s table shows the need for continued precautions to protect our most vulnerable population. 
The “Current Best Estimate” column is again to the far right. Forty percent of people infected may suffer no symptoms, such as coughing, shortness of breath, blue lips, confusion and fever. But the infectiousness of asymptomatic people is very high and the percentage of transmissions occurring prior to the onset of those symptoms also can’t be ignored.
Those of us who pass for “younger” in Port Townsend need to be careful. Nobody wants to get the virus, and we don’t want to pass it to our most senior citizens. Their struggle will be much more difficult than what we can expect, especially those who have serious other health conditions. It is those already sick elderly who are the most at risk.
But let’s cheer up. This is not the Black Death or the Spanish Flu of WWI. Two hundred thousand Americans’ deaths are considered COVID deaths, but we know that COVID itself accounts for only a tiny number of those fatalities (something like 6%). Those lives ended because COVID interacted with obesity, renal failure, chronic respiratory diseases, heart disease and compromised immune systems. But those lives were precious lives and we must grieve and take precautions so no one else leaves us sooner than they otherwise would, without regard to how close they may already be to death’s door.
You’re not going to die from COVID. Nobody around you will likely die, either. But someone might. It doesn’t make sense to continue to destroy healthy lives, jobs, businesses and communities to protect against such remote risks. We don’t have those imaginary bricks raining out of the sky. There is no justification for Jay Inslee’s ever-changing, micro-managing, playing-favorites, always arbitrary and irrational dictates that have been a cure worse than the disease. The vulnerable elderly should be the ones to take the most energetic precautions and the rest of us should resume normal life in every aspect, while demonstrating our care for those few at risk of a rare fatal encounter with the COVID virus.
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our "About" page for more information.
No, virtually all who contract the ChiCom Virus will live, even though that was most certainly not the intent of those who funded and concocted the virus, nor was it the intent those who attempted to spread it around the world. And now that the virus has all but run its course in our county and state, we must ask what is the intent of Democrat politicians who force private businesses to remain closed, force restrictions on public gatherings and demand we wear demeaning and useless masks out in public places? Is it to somehow protect us from a disease that no longer presents any risk to Jefferson County and Washington State residents? Or is it to demean us and force us to cower in locked-down fear in our homes instead of congregating in public places such as sporting events, parties, restaurants and churches? Is it to deprive our children and grandchildren the right to the proper education we as taxpayers pay for? Perhaps it is to demoralize us or deprive a significant number of us the chance to make a living, thus forcing many into the shame of government dependency? Or maybe it is an attempt to stem the popularity of a president who has done all that he has promised and more? But then it could be to show us not only who has the power to control every aspect of our lives, but that (Democrat) politicians are more than willing to exercise that power at any time and to any degree. I believe it is all of these and perhaps a few more.
But be careful, Democrats, when you shove the little people’s faces into the mud and grind your heels into the back of our heads. There comes a point when even your staunchest supporters will cease to tolerate such injustice any longer.