With John Horgan on COVID19 | Starting Strength Radio #53

[stef]

Mark Rippetoe and John Horgan discuss the current situation in terms of testing, government overreaction, economic fallout, and future instances of "quarantine" orders from local governments. John Horgan is director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology and frequent contributor to Scientific American.

[John Brothers]

Related to the possibility that Rip and John might have had COVID-19, I have a couple of personal anecdotes to offer.

The description John gave of his recent illness was eerily similar to something I’ve suffered from. In early 2016, I got sick at the tail end of a visit to Thailand. For my last few days in country, I had on-again/off-again fevers and chills. I’d get super hot and sweaty, then it would break and I’d feel great, then super cold, then great again, and so on. By the time I got on a plane to fly back to the US, I couldn’t stand the thought of food. Fruit juice and water were all I could handle. I also had serious chest congestion and a phlegmy cough. Symptoms lasted about 2 weeks, then subsided for 2 weeks, then came back in a milder form for about a week.

It’s the only time in my life I thought I might have had “the flu”. Nobody in the US figured out what it was; they tested me for malaria, but when that came back negative, they just said it was probably “a virus” and to let it run its course. I felt ridiculously shitty, but I wasn’t dying.

Bringing it back to 2020 (again, in Thailand): in late February this year, a lot of people I know got ill, including everyone in my household (except me, oddly enough). For children, symptoms were typically a really high fever (103-104 F) that lasted 24 hours. In one adult case, additional symptoms looked like food poisoning. I was hopeful everyone in my household had actually contracted COVID-19 so we could put it behind us. However, a buddy of mine had his daughter tested for the flu, and it came back positive. Looks like we got hit by another flu strain that was going around concurrently with SARS-CoV-2.

There’s a lot of strange shit that originates in this part of the world.

[DoinFives]

I can see both sides of the argument, both for and against “social distancing”. Its kind of a “pick your poison” situation. We will never know what the exact best course of action is or could have been unless we had some type of crystal ball to let us know how the situation would have played out with and without “social distancing”.

[jazzersaxman]

I really enjoyed listening to this. There are two sides to every issue, and they both brought perspective. Here's what I'm looking at as a resident of NY - another perspective perhaps; I understand Rip when he's explaining the impact that state, county and local governments are imposing on his liberties and business. I also am very concerned about the possibility of a trend that will continue to reduce individual freedoms and liberties. Also, Rip mentioned that the number of cases really impacts older people - I know the percentages are definitely show older and compromised individuals are at higher risk of death, but many healthy younger individuals are getting sick and dying (at least here in NY). This is an interesting set of graphs for those interested to see where we are in the world with death, median age, etc.: Total confirmed COVID-19 deaths vs. cases - Our World in Data

That being said, I have to mention this - with all of the discussions about numbers, projections and general predictions about this virus, the one thing that wasn't mentioned was treatment. One of the biggest factors in our state for the level of closures is the notion that this virus does not have a treatment or vaccine as other viruses do. That coupled with the ratio of transmission in comparison to other viruses and the rapid potential for serious illness, a response like NY should be understandable. We have the population density and transmission vectors (mass transit especially) to facilitate a severe rate of spread nationally. I personally do not feel a temporary inconvenience (albiet my personal situation) is not worth trying to slow a disease that apparently can be transmitted by asymptomatic people. I also feel that not everything needed to be shut down nationally. The situation in rural America is not the same as a large city. The response cannot be the same. Exercising caution is warranted everywhere, but that degree should be state-wide, not nationally. My concern also is the lack of general caution the average person would have if the reaction was not over the top. In other words, if it were announced that a bad cold was being spread and to keep your hands clean etc. etc. people would not be as hyper-aware as if to say "if you catch this, you will infect many and possibly kill them". Unfortunately, I do not feel that the average person would respond to a luke-warm warning. I saw it at the gym daily - people who are coughing, hacking, sneezing and training without any regard for others safety or health. But, while they are spreading their festering situation all over the equipment, others are unknowingly touching, breathing-in and getting infected. So - while I get it when people are saying we need to reopen things (I agree), how can we do that knowing what is the typical general behavior of a people? We know that this virus isn't treatable yet, we know it spreads very quickly, we know it has a higher mortailty rate (currently it is at 5% - 1M infected, 110K recovered, 56K dead), 2017 flu death rate was 1.7%...so, Covid19 appears deadlier, and we know that social distance slows it down (it doesn't stop it, it slows it). This is not a cookie-cutter situation, but while I understand the need to get back to 'normal', how would Rip do it? All of the people that are critical of shutdown, social distancing and reverse-quarantine are quick to point out how it's not the right thing to do...ok - what is the right thing to do? I'm genuinely curious...