The Right to Infect

Just because a man makes the decision to use a condom does not mean he is weak and fears becoming pregnant, so why does it offend someone's sense of masculinity to wear a mask to protect others from potential transmission of Covid-19?  

A man wears a condom to protect someone he loves from getting a dreaded disease or having an unwanted pregnancy, right?  So everyone, men and women, should willingly wear masks and gloves to slow down the transmission of Covid-19, by the same logic. 

Then I realized how foolish and naive I am.  The fact of the matter is that in this society, it is indeed a sign of great weakness to wear a condom and to give consideration to the needs of others.  The numbers say that there are enormous numbers of HIV, HERPES, STD and unwanted pregnancies routinely transmitted. The New York Times reported that at any point in time there are 110 million sexually transmitted diseases in the US.  I found that number hard to believe, but checking with the Center for Disease Control in the US, they claim there are 24 million new cases of sexually transmitted cases per year.  That is several times higher than the birth rate.  So totally preventable diseases are more or less freely transmitted in American society.  It is the norm.  

The numbers show that men surely do NOT protect their lovers from these terrible outcomes.  I joked about men having no fear of becoming pregnant, but they are not afraid of getting women pregnant, either.   Condom companies are obviously lousy investments, because evidently almost nobody is using them.  

If you are one of the few men who are using a condom, God bless you.

Evidently, however, many men are willfully transmitting these diseases to women who foolishly trust that their men are telling the truth that they do not have the ability to transmit these diseases ("trust me, I'm sure I'm clean, baby") or that they are willing to be responsible for the outcome ("of course I'll respect you in the morning!").  These are lies, of course.  Numbers this huge cannot be accidental.  There is a very high probability of transmitting the disease, not like Covid-19 in which at any point in time the chances of being a transmitting carrier is rather low.  

Hence, there is a pervasive belief in the right to infect others, and the right to lie.  So if men are not going to wear condoms and are willing to tell lies in order to avoid using them, they sure as hell do not care one iota about wearing a mask to save your life from Covid-19.  Get serious.  Protecting the health of a random member of the public from a serious but usually temporary illness is just not that high of a priority once they have deliberately given their lover a disease that may have lifetime implications. 

Only a minority of people are considerate enough to take even the smallest of actions to help each other..  The rest are just going to cough on you and feel that it is part of their constitutional rights.   It probably isn't, but you would have to go to court to prove it, so good luck with that.     

For that matter, if you get too close, you may also wind up with herpes, AIDS, venereal disease and what will you name the baby?   

No mask.

No condom.

No responsibility. 

No regrets.

In that context, it is very understandable why many people, especially men are offended by the idea of being asked to wear a mask.  Sadly, it is considered un-American by many of us and will take a long time to change.  

I'm wearing my masks and gloves anyway, to protect even stupid people who believe I am un-American and unmasculine.  I accept those terms.   

So Why are New Cases of Covid-19 Decreasing in Sweden?

Why are new cases per capita of Covid-19 apparently decreasing in Sweden even as critics blast the country for failing to control the disease?  This is a statistically significant trend.   I wish to make up my own mind about the situation and I find that the story lines published in media do not make logical sense to me.  

Briefly, the situation is that the Swedish government imposed fewer mandatory restrictions on young, healthy people, while asking older, more vulnerable people to try to isolate themselves.  The rest of the world asked everyone to isolate, healthy or not.  The Swedish idea was that the general population would build up some level of resistance to the disease, keeping in mind that this disease has no cure and that there are no established right answers to refer to.  

This suggests to me that the world urgently needs to be open minded and try to study and learn from what others are doing.  Okay, the entire world has made mistakes starting with the highest medical authorities in the world, but we all have a job to do to look after one another, so let's assign blame later, shall we?  

If the Swedish concept was wrong, what we should have seen is a widespread exponential increase among the young less isolated young people, while the  more isolated elderly people should be about the same as other like countries, right?

Instead, we see the opposite.  The death rate among the elderly was very high early on, among the  highest in Europe.  The incidence of new cases in Sweden is now seen to be significantly decreasing.  This is the exact opposite of what the critics predicted.

Incidentally,  I have noticed that Swedish data for new cases goes up and down with a seven day cycle, apparently because their test rate varies during the week.  I have plotted the per capita new infection rate for Sweden (blue) compared to the same stat for Ohio (red), where I live.  Of course there are a number of variables that affect the number of cases, but Ohio is generally thought to have had a well controlled situation especially early on, while Sweden has become a target for world criticism.    Nevertheless, for months they  tracked similarly, at about 50 new cases per day per million residents (Sweden has about 10.2 million residents, Ohio 11.7 million so we are similar populations too).  Recently Ohio has attempted to restart its economy and is seeing a rise in the number of new cases.  

According to NPR's Bill Chappell, (Swedish Disease Expert Calls WHO's COVID-19 Warning 'A Total Mistake' June 26, 2020) Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell says  Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe,  made "a total mistake"when it concluded Sweden is seeing a surge of coronavirus cases. Kluge said on Thursday that Sweden, among others, has "accelerated transmission has led to very significant resurgence that if left unchecked will push health systems to the brink once again in Europe." 

Tegnell claims that this big June surge is simply due to increased testing. 

Okay.....so.....IS IT TRUE?   Since peaking on June 24, the Swedish incidence of new cases, is headed distinctly lower.   Are they reporting fake data?  Deaths peaked on April 15 and have been steadily decreasing ever since.  Is it TRUE OR FAKE?  

I've heard some experts say that Swedish society is way for away from being able to resist the disease based on the percentage of people who have antibodies present.  Well, I'm not an expert but it seems to me that  people do not fully understand this disease.  Although many experts are disappointed in the percentage of the population in Sweden and elsewhere that carry Covid-19 antibodies, others have questioned the role that T cells (T lymphocytes) might play in augmenting the human immune system. I'll have to defer to the experts to determine whether T-cells actually change the equation for resisting and slowing down the disease.  Maybe antibodies, T-cells, social distancing and some other x-factor all have roles to play and we ought not just dismiss it as nonsense.  

I think everyone agrees that Sweden would like to have changed procedures to better protect the elderly, because the death rate as of April 15 was much too high, but that's not what this is about, is it?  The question was whether they can avoid the catastrophe of an exponential increase in which  a large fraction of the entire society is ill simultaneously and overloads the medical system.  Instead, we all  hoped to "flatten the curve" to avert a shortage of hospital beds at least until a vaccine or medicines are created.  

I do not wish to use the term "herd immunity" because it is so emotionally charged now that it is a meaningless term.  But what I do want to say is the following:  the numbers now say the number of new cases of Covid-19 peaked on June 24 and have decreased by a statistically significant amount in Sweden, to the point that they are now significantly lower than the numbers in Ohio and the US as a whole.  Either the Swedish government is lying or is not testing or....perhaps it is not so ridiculous to suggest they are succeeding in controlling this disease.  

       

One thing is for sure, there is no let up in relentless criticism of Sweden from the highest levels of international organizations down to supermarket tabloids.

      

Boycott Swedish meatballs at the grocery store if you must.  However, it behooves us to determine whether the numbers are correct before concluding we have nothing to learn from the approach this highly advanced country has taken.