The One Reason that Americans Are Violently Divided Over the Coronavirus

Or, “2020, The Year of the Great Aerosolized Toilet Plume Debate”

Testing.

Ninety percent of the bickering and disagreement over every single thing about the coronavirus is because of where the information ends and our speculating begins. Liberals and conservatives argue whether we should be opening businesses more quickly; older and younger people, perhaps even in the same household, argue about the risk of socializing; libertarians argue with ‘social goods’ advocates about the mandating of masks; the cautious argue with everyone else over the danger of going into a toilet stall for fear of aerosolized toilet plume; we argue whether the supermarket is safer than the convenience store; is indoor safer than outdoor; is an elevator or an airplane a death trap? But in all of those arguments, often between people who never argued before, we forget that we are having this difference of opinion because we have no clear numbers… our information stops like a road leading to the edge of a cliff. And we’re arguing over what the scenery looks like on the rest of the road. The one critical, limiting factor in the information gap is testing.

Now before I get too far down that Wile E. Coyote road that gravity forgot, I do want to forewarn you that by ‘testing’ I’ll be referring to more than just each individual getting a single infection test. There’s a lot more to ‘testing’ than that.

But first, let’s look at all of the things we do know. We know a lot from varying levels of scientific study. On the extreme end of rigorous science, we know a lot about the virus’s mechanics: its incubation period; its symptoms; its similarity and contrast to other coronaviruses; how long it can live on surfaces; its contagiousness; its statistical likelihood of hospitalization and death.

Then there’s a whole lot more we know from what’s called empirical evidence, and smart people’s inferences from all of that evidence. For instance we have inferred with great certainty from specific outbreaks, that it travels mostly by infected people breathing out and others breathing in. We know this is more likely from sneezing, coughing, singing or yelling, and close-talking, in decreasing measure. Scientists have inferred from prior research that it takes a ‘minimum infectious dose’ to get infected. (For other coronaviruses, they can tell you the approximate but specific number of virus particles!) From those inferences we can logically derive that fresh air, and being outside, and being in a breeze, and not breathing each others’ breath greatly reduces your chance of infection. I personally feel 100% safe when outside and far enough away from someone that I couldn’t smell their perfume or cologne. Helpful tip: that’s actually a clue that you’re far enough. Perfume ‘smell’ is actually molecules hitting your nose’s receptors. If you can smell someone’s perfume you can breath their coronavirus particles, called ‘virions.’ But fear not; refer back a few sentences to that mention of ‘minimum infectious dose.’ It takes more than one or two virions. A normal immune system fights off some quantity. As I said, we just don’t know exactly how many.

And we know how it is different from the flu. This is an important set of statistics that all public voices — the media and political leaders — must master:

1. Covid-19’s is at least 10 times more deadly than the flu.
2. Covid-19 is 5 times more contagious than the flu.
3. Covid-19 is 15 times more likely to put you in the hospital.
4. Covid-19 causes hospital visits that are twice as long as the flu.
5. Does it also matter to you that when it makes an old person ill, their family may never see them again once they are take to the hospital?
6. Does it matter to you that when coronavirus kills, you basically drown to death in a hospital bed, and, God-willing, they’ve managed to stockpile enough knockout drugs that you don’t have to be conscious to ‘experience’ it?

Whenever you hear a pundit stumble to answer a naysayer about the flu comparison, email them that list above. As one ER nurse said in the post-traumatic shock of a shift ending, “this is not the flu, this is a monster.”

What we don’t know — as it specifically bears on our shared, desperate need to recover 50 million citizens’ jobs, income, food, and mental health — is whether there’s coronavirus in the specific store or restaurant that I’m about to walk into. And we don’t know what the percentage likelihood is of contracting the infection in each business type… even if, on a statistical basis there were to be some virus particles in their air. And the reason we don’t know those answers is the criminally corrupt, anti-science lack of leadership that has led us to have a completely failed testing regimen. And we have just hit the point on a slippery slope where we might not be able to scale up testing quickly enough to catch up… to ‘get our arms around it.’ But we know that South Korea has exercised a precise and orderly command of science to control the disease. And somehow, we have not.

Which brings us briefly to understanding the Trump strategy, which is also the way a lot of people — one quarter to one third of the U.S.? — probably view the pandemic. If you are easily offended you might want to stop here. Trump’s people are telling him this: “You’ve missed the chance to be South Korea; what’s done is done, it’s not your fault. People die every day. In America, that number is 8,000. It’s gone up to 9,000 during the virus. People die. It’s killing the weak and old. Nuthin’ ya can do now. What’s important is that we get all the dying over by September so you can get re-elected. In fact it will be good for the ‘conomy, you wait and see. The old folks in nursing homes were some of the most expensive healthcare dollars in the entire entitlement mess. When those dollars are freed up the economic fires will roar. You watch. Just get it done by September. Can you manage to get 7,000 people breathing on each other somewhere? How ‘bout in front of Mount Rushmore? That’ll surely bring ’em in.”

So what do we mean by testing? Individual testing the most obvious. Knowing who should be quarantined is the first and best step. If we could miraculously test every single person on one day, we could quarantine the infected and the whole debacle would be over in two incubation periods (three or four weeks). But what about strategic national testing on a statistical basis so we could simply understand the ‘positivity’ rate of others when we walk out the door of our houses? You can probably estimate that one in 10 people on your street has a gun. Can you tell me how many have coronavirus? If we could know that, for instance, 0.4% (4 in 1000 people) in our neighborhood were infected, we might breath easier. If we knew that communities start seeing lots of hospitalization when they’re over 3% then we’d have some basis for decision-making. But we don’t have comprehensive testing. (Notice that ‘comprehensive,’ in addition to meaning complete, also means understanding.)

Another form of ‘aggregate’ testing is tracking the physical paths people have taken, via their cellphones, and mapping the dots along with information showing people who were infected. We’ve heard about this sort of thing in other countries — perhaps countries that we regard as having less freedom than us. But other countries have also been smart about it by making the tracking app provide benefits, such as information on where to get medical help, in exchange for giving up information. We’ve gotten accustomed to the idea that any compromise in privacy is an affront to freedom, but many people are well-intentioned enough to help the national cause and participate. If scientists could look at a map that showed specific types of businesses and events and tie that to actual infection, the public would have confidence to return to the appropriate, safe activities and get the economy going sooner… and with greater staying power.

Next is collecting data on people who have had various, particular experiences. Consider just airplanes. People have been flying in planes during the entire pandemic. And the airlines know every single name who has been on those flights. Wouldn’t the airlines be the first ones to want to prove that those flyers haven’t been infected? This is the worst national emergency we’ve ever lived through; if that’s not enough to investigate those people’s health after flying, what is? And I’m entirely in favor of paying them for their health information. This is ‘testing’… getting ‘experience results’ after what’s called an ‘exposure’: flying on a plane.

Here’s another one. Why not have the CDC pay for voluntary tracking of people after they come out of notoriously packed restaurants or bars. And similarly for restaurants with more space, to make the comparison and prove with data whether close spacing makes sense. I suggest that the CDC set up a truck outside popular entertainment areas and solicit test subjects, with the incentive of a typical drug study stipend.

As we see the western states increase their positivity rapidly, we are on the brink of this virus overwhelming our healthcare system, and that has been the main risk all along. Yes, illness and even death have always been ‘facts of life,’ but it has not acceptable to abuse our doctors and nurses and it is not now, just because you might not feel at risk. We are experiencing a catastrophic collapse of national governance because we are led by an anti-science ignoramus who is enabled by a criminally negligent Senate that is giving aid and comfort to the deadliest enemy in 100 years. Only organized science can save us.