Common sense continues to save lives

In Loretta Ann Torres’ September 23 letter, she claims that only .003% of COVID patients have required hospital treatment. According to the latest government statistics, 42.5 million Americans have contracted COVID. Multiplying .003% by 42.5 million gives a product of 1,275. That’s barely a tenth of how many patients are hospitalized for COVID at this very moment! The CDC reports that there have been almost 3 million hospitalizations for COVID since the pandemic began, and over 680,000 deaths. Dividing the number of hospitalizations and deaths by the number of cases yields the true figures that 7% of COVID cases have required hospitalizations, and 1.6% (so far) have resulted in death.

More Americans have now died from COVID in the past year and a half than from all of our wars combined, or from the Spanish flu of 1918. It’s not “fear mongering” to take this disease seriously. And over 6 billion of the “experimental” COVID vaccines have now been administered to almost half of the world’s population, with very few side effects. The vaccines are remarkably safe and effective, and free to every American with enough common sense to take them.

— Scott Paulo, Chico