COLUMN: Containing the virus in Georgia
Georgia has gone from a record low unemployment of 3.5% to a 20% unemployment rate in a month. Nationally, two-thirds of people who work in the restaurant industry are out of work. The situation is bad.
Shelter-in-place was the right solution. Right now, COVID-19 cases are reported by the Centers for Disease Control based on actual confirmed positive tests. In other words, when the state of Georgia crossed 20,000 cases, those were based on tests, not tests and suspected cases. Likewise, despite the conspiracy theories of some, deaths have to be reasonably related to the virus.
Some on the right have speculated that anyone who has the virus and dies will be considered to have died of the virus. This is patently false. The conspiracy theorists are citing Dr. Birx from the White House, but she actually pushed back on the idea. The reality is medical professionals have methods and rules in place for listing deaths as related to the virus or not.
Focus on the testing for a moment. In 2009, as the H1N1 pandemic spread, the CDC decided to start tracking together both confirmed flu tests and also suspected flu cases based on hospital coding. So, for example, in the 2018-2019 flu season, 43,000 people died of the flu in the United States. That includes both those who tested positive for the flu and those who were presumed to have the flu and died. Subtract the presumed cases, leave just the confirmed positive tests, and only around 7,000 people died of the flu. In other words, in eight weeks COVID-19 has killed over 40,000 people who tested positive for the virus compared to a 7,000 people who tested positive for the flu dying in the six month flu season of 2018-2019.
COVID-19 is not just a bad flu. In fact, it is not even an influenza virus. Even assuming more people have it than we know, the mortality still appears over one percent when the flu mortality is a tenth of one percent. Likewise, COVID-19 is more contagious than the flu. The only reasonable solution to stop its spread has been to stay home.
Georgians did stay home. The ability of the virus to spread in the community has halted. While there will still be some spikes from eldercare facilities and other confined groups, community spread has ceased.
9A month ago, activists demanded Brian Kemp listen to the experts in Georgia, namely Dr. Kathleen Toomey. When Dr. Toomey told the Governor he needed to order the state to shelter-in-place, he did just that. Cell phone data suggests only about twenty percent of Georgians really changed their behavior. Many were already hunkered down. A month later, the daily new cases of the virus have declined.
It is important to note that while the data suggests big rises in new cases, what is actually happening is delayed tests are coming back. The tests from the beginning of April get lumped into the release making the daily new cases seem large. The reality is day after day the new cases decline. As a result, Dr. Toomey has said the state can slowly reopen. The Governor has not gotten new advisors. But the very people who attacked him for not listening to his advisors are now attacking him for listening to the very same advisors. The virus is not going away. We need to chart a path to reopening and we might as well start slowly and start now.
Erick Erickson is host of the Erick Erickson Show on News-Talk 940 WMAC