After reading the last few threads under the topic of "Urgent Petitions to keep RV Campgrounds Open" and seeing a lot of figures and numbers presented I wish to add this to keep it all in proper perspective.  I was able to speak at length with my doctor today and she gave me the following information:

WORLDWIDE DEATHS THIS YEAR  01/01/2020 - 04/01/2020

10,670,908 deaths from abortion

  2,807,866 deaths from starvation

  2,061,853 deaths from cancer

  1,254,997 deaths from smoking

     422,032 deaths from HIV/AIDS

     338,886 deaths from traffic fatalities

     269,209 deaths from suicide

     246,250 deaths from malaria

     211,416 deaths from unclean drinking water

     122,062 deaths from influenza (flu)

       46,491 deaths from coronavirus

Praying and hoping we can work together as a team to curb all these unfortunate deaths.

Successful defeat of a pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 requires drastic steps or we will find ourselves with another pandemic of staggering proportions.  For those who like to gamble with their own life, I really don't care, but when you gamble with your neighbors lives and mine, then stay, as the song says, stay the F. at home.  You may have your own rights to do what you want, but you don't have the right to kill your neighbors.  Like the 1918-19 pandemic, this virus is a sneaker spreading to others long before the infected person knows s/he's infected.  And with an Ro of about 2.6, this thing can spread exponentially.  No sane person would attend group functions unless he simply doesn't care about his fellow man.

Originally posted by marwayne Jato, I don't think you have your numbers quite right, The number of death in the US alone is almost 60000

The point of the post is obviously purely political: to say that abortions kill more than everything else put together. But, yeah, I don't know what any of the real numbers are but I'd find them more credible if they were rounded to the nearest thousand.  I doubt any knows exactly how many people died from any of these causes. All that is aside from the ongoing debate about Choice.

TT

Charlie, you are correct.  Please note the figures given were through the end of March, in other words the first three months of 2020.  Yes CV-19 deaths have risen dramatically in the past 3 weeks, and I would suppose the death rates of the other categories have risen as well.

Good news from Newser this morning stating that no new CV-19 cases for 6 days in the Province of Newfoundland, hopefully, we will be seeing other good news about this deadly virus in the days ahead.

I concur. To include abortions on a list of human death statistics is in itself an expression of a religious and/or a political opinion and has no place on this forum in my opinion. There is probably no single issue more divisive. 

Here are the most recent US annual disease fatality rates from the CDC website:

Of the accidents, 38K were auto accidents

 

Then we have:

Opioids: 47K

Homicide: 20K

HIV: 16K

Covid is at 50K and rising, so it is already at or ahead of opioids, HIV, homicide, suicide, auto accidents, influenza, and will end up ahead of all but heart disease, cancer, stroke, alzheimer's, lower respiratory disease, and maybe diabetes. 

But heart disease, cancer, stroke, alzheimer's, COPD, and diabetes are not contagious diseases, and that is a huge difference in terms of response. Public health organizations, quarantines and contact tracing used to be a very important and accepted function of government, but that has withered since the advent of all the vaccines and treatments which have made the contagious diseases the oldest of us recall from our childhoods mostly obsolete.

So now we need to rebuild that government infrastructure, and sadly, like seemingly everything else in America these days, management of a global pandemic has been politicized, and thereby rendered inefficient at best and ineffective at worst. Look at the last contagious disease public health crisis of significance, HIV, and recall how politicized that got. Covid is way more contagious. 

The covid 19 numbers cause a skewing of other numbers though (IMHO) because many of the underlying health issues of the deceased were going to kill them anyways and many of them are on that list separately. C-19 just hurried it along and put them in a lump.

Trust me when I say it's a rough ride. Some of you may have noticed a month long absence from here, by me, (maybe, maybe not, I do try to be as unobtrusive as possible, LOL) but guess why I wasn't online??

I also think C-19 will peter out here in a bit, just like the flu does every year, giving all them other death tolls time to catch up.

Go wash your hands.

Arguing that in the first few months of a pandemic the death rates are not all that high is disingenuous.  It's like arguing about the final score of a baseball game after the top half of the first inning.  As one of my favorite philosophers once said:  "It ain't over 'til it's over."  

The death rate from the flu pandemic of 1918-19 wasn't all that high in its first few months either.  Two years later, it had infected a full third of the world's population.  Here's a 40 minute review of that disaster:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

We are a very long way from this pandemic being over and really should be thinking about how to manage the next one that comes along, which it inevitably will.  Life as we know it will not return to "normal."  .... and no, injecting a disinfectant into one's body will not cure SARS-CoV-2 any more than shoving a UVC light rod down one's throat.

I expect my government to do a good job protecting us and our families, that is after all its fundamental purpose. Certainly having a functional economy is part of that, and there is absolutely a valid debate to be had there, but arguing that those sick ppl would have died anyway should not be a part of that discussion (IMHO), it will just foment more division. 

There are several examples of east Asian democracies which have successfully controlled this with very low fatality rates, without lockdowns and maintained most of their economic activity while doing so, so its not like we really need to reinvent the wheel here. We would need to adjust our expectations of personal privacy for awhile. Those east Asia democracies decided to do that after SARs in 2003 so were prepared. Small price to pay IMHO compared to what's going on now. 

NO ONE I am aware of has suggested just letting at risk people die. That's absurd.

My parents fall in the "seriously at risk" category also. And damned if I can make them stay home or wear PPE from here.

Originally posted by lostagain And personal responsibility means not infecting others in your community.

It can also mean keeping yourself home, so you can't be infected, and realizing most people are trying hard as they can to do the right thing, but as with ALL things in life, some people, won't...

Where did I suggest someone was directly stating that they wanted to "just let" at risk ppl die?

But if you relax restrictions during an epidemic there will be more cases and if there are more cases more ppl will die. Not rocket science. So when Dan Patrick and Dr. Oz and others suggest reducing restrictions they are stating that they are OK on balance if more folks die of this as long as other benefits accrue from doing that. They are entitled to that opinion and others are entitled to disagree. 

What gripes me is that we wind up with an all or nothing decision making process when there are effective alternatives to either scenario that other countries have successfully implemented, but we are so polarized that we can't seem to even have a rational conversation about them. Like, for example, location tracking via smartphone to identify and isolate contacts, and to enforce quarantine protocol for infected individuals rather than total lockdowns of whole populations. That has been proven to work well, no reason we couldn't do the same in the US that I can see. 

Government certainly has a critical role to play in establishing and enforcing public health policy in combating infectious disease. That is nothing new, a couple of generations ago that was completely accepted. That doesn't take away from personal responsibility, just like we should all exercise personal responsibility by not illegally throwing our garbage in the river even when no one happens to be looking. 

The irony of this whole thing is that if we do all the things to avoid spreading the infection, those who are saying it's no big deal will claim that they are proven right because we did not have high infection rates, when in fact it would really be the quarantine procedures that worked.  Always the well prepared get the Monday morning quarterbacking when they avoided the disaster.

As for people suggesting that we should let people die, sadly there have been a number of prominent people who have said just that.  But to discuss it would really launch into a political discussion that we don't need to fight over.   

Everyone wants to get back to normal as soon as possible.  The problem is that there are a lot of ill informed people who don't chose to believe the science and think that some how they will not pass the disease to others, nor can others pass the disease to them; kind of like the old Gardol shield.  The reality is that we need to listen to the public health experts and reopen in a manner consistent with good science.  If we jump the gun, we'll see a second wave, and maybe a third or fourth, that will be unnecessary and tragic.  (That's how San Francisco got hit with the second wave of the Spanish flu.  They were ready for the first, but let their guard down for the second and didn't take the shut down measures the second time.  But we seldom learn from history.)

I'm as tired of being trapped at home as anyone and am chomping at the bit to get outside and take my brand new travel trailer and brand new truck all over the country.  But I believe that my wishes need to be subordinated to the common good.  It's unpleasant, but necessary. 

Oh! where did I put that IV line for my gallon of Clorox....