Suddenly, everyone is an expert on infectious disease

Canadian medical schools have apparently churned out epidemiologists by the thousands without telling anybody.

They’re all over social media and in the comments sections of Canada’s two national newspapers, pontificating about the pandemic and declaring virology experts are wrong, fraudulent, delusional and worse.

A favourite online expression is “COVID hysteria,” meaning various politicians, public health officers and infectious disease experts overreacted to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is “no worse than the flu.”

If you ever suspected social media would eventually expose the depths of human stupidity, the pandemic has done it.

It comes down to numeracy. Many people, usually the most vociferous in their declarations that the danger of the coronavirus is exaggerated, have difficulty comprehending basic arithmetic.

On the other hand, the bona fide experts, when quoted in media reports about the pandemic, usually talk about statistics, probabilities, variables and other facts based on science and mathematics — things the social media experts generally don’t have a clue about.

The numbers quickly prove public health experts are right and the social media blowhards are spectacularly and predictably wrong.

In mid April, the Public Health Agency of Canada released a report stating that if no action were taken, between 300,000 and 350,000 Canadians would die from COVID-19, but if strong measures were taken to control the spread of the coronavirus, the Canadian death toll could be limited to between 11,000 and 22,000.

A month later, the agency’s predictions are proving accurate.

Physical distancing measures have curtailed the spread of the coronavirus. As of Monday, 4,993 Canadians have died from COVID-19.

Assuming no more people become infected, and extrapolating from the number of coronavirus infections (69,981), the Canadian death toll would reach about 9,000.

The important variable, obviously, is how many more Canadians become infected before the pandemic ends.

Don’t take my word for it, and definitely don’t be swayed by the social media geniuses, even if they claim to have passed Grade 12 math.

Make use of the calculator on your phone. The Globe and Mail (www.theglobeandmail.com) publishes daily the numbers of COVID-19 cases, recoveries and deaths in Canada and worldwide.

The numbers are also listed by province and country, and are based on statistics compiled by governments and by Johns Hopkins University, a place that requires its employees to have real credentials.

As of Tuesday, there have been 286,547 COVID19 deaths worldwide and 4,195,859 cases. Even if no more cases are diagnosed, the worldwide death toll will likely reach about 686,000.

Such calculations may seem morbid and macabre, even a bit tacky, but they are necessary to counteract the ignorant misinformation that is being spread online.

As tragic and horrifying as these deaths are, bear in mind they occurred while the world was in lockdown, and people were practicing physical distancing.

Epidemiologists have predicted that as economic shutdowns end, the number of COVID-19 cases will increase, and this has already been borne out in this week’s headlines. When even Germany experiences a spike in cases, you know the coronavirus is not “just like the flu.”

Beyond the mere math, there is a historical element to the COVID-19 pandemic.

News reports about a week ago announced the death toll in the U.S. had surpassed the number of Americans killed during the Vietnam War.

This week, the worldwide COVID-19 death toll surpassed the number of people killed by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Much of the world is infected by MDA — modern day arrogance. There is an assumption that 21st-century technology and knowledge makes humanity immune from the destruction that can be unleashed by nature.

Here’s a thought: what if the COVID-19 pandemic was even worse than it is? What if it was on the scale of the Spanish flu, which killed between 20 million and 50 million people around the world in 1918-19?

What if it had the virulence of the Black Death, which killed about one-third of Europe’s population in the 1300s?

Modern day arrogance posits that such disasters happen to other people, in other times, but not to us, not now, because we are smart and civilized and advanced.

Historical awareness could help put into perspective some of the complaints and whining about lockdowns and shutdowns.

Brian Jones is a desk editor at The Telegram. He can be reached at brian.jones@thetelegram.com.