I’ll give you an imaginative but not so far-fledged example.
Divorced father of two from the US, visiting his Israeli kids and ex. He gets the kids to stay over but also gets COVID-19. For two days, he can’t breathe. He takes Paracetamol and feels a bit better.
He sent his kids back to his ex. Within a day, she loses her sense of smell and taste. The next day, she has terrible chest pain but that subsides.
The kids were a bit cranky. They got sick and transported the virus to their mother.
Within a couple of days, they’re all fine again. And probably immune.
They never called a doctor. The father was afraid to be blamed. Also, the mother doesn’t want to be accused in the future in a court case that she was sick with the kids around.
So these are people who know that they went through it but it was too short and too mild to make an issue of it. (And in my example, also felt that they had a reason to be secretive about it.) These stories come on top of people who really had no symptoms at all.
Anti-Body Testing
We will only know how many people got infected and immune already once we have an anti-body test (to see if someone recently has developed immunity for this coronavirus) that is at random and mandatory done at a larger scale. There barely exists such a test, let alone that people could be obligated to cooperate being tested for the statistics.
On the one hand, if many of the infected hardly or not at all feel sick, its deadliness could be less than feared. On the other hand, if many die from the virus at home (UK, US) and are not counted, it’s worse than assumed.
From dictatorships (most countries) no numbers can be trusted.
For sure, when the poorer countries’ numbers will come in, the pandemic’s deadliness will dramatically rise above the present 6.8% of the infected. (Which in itself is probably half the real percentage because the mortality rate still relates to the much lower infection rate of days to weeks before.)
The above is a separate issue from the tests for who is sick and infectious at the moment. They are needed to prevent outbreaks from spreading. And that testing is already possible but has its own logistic problems.
More Unknowns
There are ongoing worries that getting over the infection might not be for good. That the virus might still be hiding and can reappear. Early worries that this virus likely very easily can mutate seem confirmed now. Add to this the newest finding that the virus may attack the immune system.
So, at least for now, we are still relatively in the dark. But physicians don’t raise their hands in despair when they don’t know something. These are simply some of the many unknown variables that they work with.
MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to two Dutch survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork, and holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam). He taught Re-evaluation Co-counseling, became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. *
His most influential teachers (chronologically) are: his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach and lehavdiel bein chayim lechayim: Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff and Rav Meir Lubin. *
Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years he wrote hasbara for the Dutch public. His fields of attention now are varied: Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (statistics), Politics (Israel, the US and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight Truth), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, GLBTQAI, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), Ecology and Veganism. Sometimes he's misunderstood because he has such a wide vision that never fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what many love about him. Many of his posts relate to affairs from the news or the Torah Portion of the Week or are new insights that suddenly befell him. *
He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, reassure the doubters but make the self-assured doubt more. He strives to bring a fresh perspective rather than bore you with the obvious. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds must be disputed. In short, his main political positions are: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, democracy, anti the fake peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, Science, Free Will, anti blaming-the-victim and for down-to-earth optimism. Read his blog how he attempts to bridge any discrepancies. He admits sometimes exaggerating to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quit a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. *
His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. November 13, 2018, he published his 500st blog post with the ToI. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having a peek outside of your cultural bubble. *
NEW: To see other blog posts by him, his overspill blog you can reach by clicking on the Website icon next to his picture at the head of every post. There you may find precursors to later TOI blog posts, addition or corrections of published TOI blog posts, blog posts the TOI will not carry and some thoughts that are too short to be a TOI blog post. Also, the TOI only allows for one blog post per blogger per 24 hours. Sometimes, he has more to say than that. *
To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me.
