Covid comparisons
Re: “Immune response”, (PostBag, June 11).
I disagree with Eric Bahrt’s letter and conclusion. At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic very little was known about the virus and disease. Result: hospitals were not able to cope with the staggering number of very ill people and there were not enough ventilators, while healthcare workers were pushed to breaking point and refrigerator trucks were necessary outside hospitals for the corpses. I used to live in the borough of Queens, New York, where the situation was especially acute. However, I do agree with him that “Taking responsibility for your health” is very important.
Comparing Covid and pneumonia is a specious comparison. We have known a lot about pneumonia for a very long time and there has been effective treatment for it since the advent of antibiotics. On the other hand, very little was known about Covid. We have known that pneumonia is not contagious after two days of antibiotics. For the first 20 months, there was no known effective treatment for Covid.
Bill Gates, an intelligent and influential individual, has been warning about possible serious pandemics for 20 years. He now wants to “out-plan” the next pandemic. In addition, not only people with weakened immune systems and the obese were stricken by Covid. I have a distant relative in Belgium, a slim 40-year-old vegetarian, who assiduously takes care of her health. She was stricken twice with Covid and still feels cognitively impaired 20 months after the second bout. Each time she was incapacitated for months. Maybe she was already immunocompromised but was not aware of it.
Despite what I’ve written above, there certainly have been overreactions to the pandemic, erring on the side of caution. China’s “Zero Covid” policy is a case in point. Thailand has, to a much lesser extent, overreacted (hindsight). On the other hand, Thailand has had 1/7 the number of deaths per capita compared with the US. Yes, there are more obese people in America but the healthcare system is better and Americans with no health insurance were treated for free, because Covid was considered a threat to society. That was in the country where “rugged individualism” is prevalent. From his letter, Eric Bahrt seems to be a rugged individualist. I myself have a different worldview. From the cooperation I’ve witnessed with Covid precautions in Thailand, it seems most Thais don’t agree with Mr Bahrt.
BRUCE BIRD