drdanrukeyser.com

severe COVID

Severe COVID is a preventable disease.

COVID

It has now been over two years since the world’s attention has fixated on the COVID Pandemic. During that time there have been over 850,000 deaths in the US from COVID, that’s well over 35,000 American deaths every month. While many people would dispute those numbers as “fake news” or, more intelligently, “complicated”, it is clear that COVID has had a significant impact to the health, economy and political environment in the United States.

 

“Common sense tells us that when faced with a deadly force of nature threatening all humans indiscriminately—like a global pandemic—we should unite to battle the common enemy. But that’s not what we did: Instead, we entered a national dogfight over politics.” Writes Connie Lin from Fast Company

 

It is likely that the polarized political climate was ripe for further division. It seems like every opinion fits neatly into one of two political camps recently. Seemingly unrelated topics like mask-wearing or climate change have become part of each sides “mega-identity”. Unfortunate politicking in the early days of the pandemic lumped COVID into the myriad of predetermined opinions, spoon-fed to a society unaccustomed to individual thought.

 

That is truly unfortunate because in the face of a national threat, we cannot afford to allow the conversation, if we’re having one, to drift into the typical fortification-of-my-opinion banter. This should be a wake-up call. And while we’re at it, let’s talk about what really matters now, without political bias.

 

Why is SARS-COV-2 dangerous? What should we learn from it? What can we do to protect ourselves from the next pandemic? What if the United States’ population were to become nearly immune to debilitating and deadly illnesses like that of severe COVID?

 

COVID Risk Factors

A novel (new) virus is dangerous because of what we don’t know about it. In early 2020, there was no way we could have predicted the dangers posed by “the coronavirus” as we called it then. The novelty necessitated a immediate and serious mitigation of risk, especially for those most vulnerable. With time and careful observation, more appropriate steps can be taken to respond to the real threat. Public health will always be influenced by economic and social factors, but this process must be done without influence of political bias.

 

Over the past two years, it has become increasingly clear that severe COVID illness is extremely rare in healthy individuals.

Not impossible, but rare. Risks, however are high for people with certain health conditions.  It is clear that smoking, diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease, some types of cancer, or chronic kidney disease are present in nearly all cases of severe COVID.

 

Severe COVID is a preventable disease.

An unhealthy population is at higher risk from infectious disease. That should be clear and obvious to most of us. The United States is unhealthy and getting worse every year. The conversation that we need to have now is about our health as a nation. Smoking kills nearly 500,000 people each year in this country. Obesity and inactivity kill over 400,000 people every year. A diet of refined foods high in salt and trans fat but low in Omega 3 fats, kill nearly 300,000 people each year.

 

These same killers are responsible for severe COVID, and they are all totally preventable.

If we are to argue that wearing a mask in public indoor spaces and getting fully vaccinated are protective against severe COVID, which they appear to be, and they are easy to do, then we should do them. But, can’t we do them and address the more significant issue concurrently?

 

Clearly, the fear of disease and death have motivated us to completely change our lives to protect ourselves. We have changed how we work, shop and socialize because of the risks of COVID. If we were truly aware of the preventable risks, would we be willing to change our lifestyles, eat better and move more?

 

The cause of the deteriorating health of this nations is complicated. There are social and economic factors that are going to be difficult to solve. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be as easy as insisting on personal responsibility, but that should be part of it. So should equality of opportunity, job security and availability of healthy foods in all communities. The answers are there, if we would just start having the conversation.

 

We must break the pattern of mega-identification and work together to solve this public health disaster, without political bias. The success of our nation depends on it. The economic cost of diabetes alone is well over $300 billion. It is estimated that 90% of diabetes cases are preventable. Imagine if hundreds of billions of dollars could be shifted to more productive endeavors, like education or mental health assistance. How would that impact our competitiveness in the world? How would an increase in $100 billion in productivity impact our economy?

 

Absent the preventable causes of disease, death and severe COVID– the impact of COVID on this country– would have been minimal. COVID is a symptom of the state of health and the state of politics and government in the United States. We cannot prevent the next virus from entering, it will come. Let’s start talking about real change.