The United States is a great country. We’ve accomplished so much since 1776. We’ve fought for freedom and became the Earth’s Superpower Nation. This is no small feat. And here we are, on the cusp of releasing a vaccine for SARS CoV-2. Something that normally takes 10-15 years to go from pre-clinical status to just Phase 1, in just months this vaccine will have traveled through the regulatory system and be delivered to the public. That kind of coordination and effort is impressive.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Mike Tyson
What hasn’t been impressive is how hard this virus has punched us in the mouth. As of this writing, the US has passed the level of deaths predicted by Dr. Anthony Fauci of a quarter million with no end in sight. What is driving the ongoing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US? Not enough fear? Mask non-compliance? The density of our population? Arrogance? Crap luck? Our differing levels of risk tolerance? The fact that it’s been politicized?
To an extent, all of those things are weighted factors that have worsened our outcome here in the US. In War you attack your enemies weaknesses with your strengths. This virus has done a superb job of exploiting our Achilles Heel, and it’s largely been ignored in the press.
How so? How can the World’s Superpower be terribly mismatched in a battle with a virus? No one loves criticism. There are, though, some that will take criticism and ask if there’s any truth to it. There’s plenty of blame to go around here. However, we have to meet our population where it is. We’re here. This is our current and realistic state. We have to understand how and why we got here, and we have to do the work to get out.
“The roof was already leaking when the storm came”…”the soldiers were already tired when the blitzkrieg arrived”… and so on. This virus has done worse damage to the US because we were already sick when it hit our shores. Our collective lifestyle choices, our food system, and healthcare model have put us at a major disadvantage in the fight against COVID; an underdog from the opening bell. We’ve been fighting off of our heels.
Where We Are:
We are a very sick country. 6 out of every 10 adults has a chronic disease. 4 out of 10 have 2 chronic diseases to manage. These long-term health conditions are the leading causes of disability and death for our population.
COVID-19 is kicking our ass. It’s kicking our ass, in large part, because we’ve failed to get off of it. The last CDC measurements put the US’ obesity rate at 42.4% of the population. For Black Americans, the rate is 49.6%. Think about that – Half of the Black population is already more susceptible to health complications with COVID-19 from the jump. Making matters worse for ourselves, the percentage of severely obese adults doubled since 2000 (BMI of 40 or higher), from 4.7% to 9.2%. What comes with these percentages? Higher levels of coronary artery disease, renal failure, fatty liver, high blood pressure, and diabetes ( A third of the country is diabetic or pre-diabetic; over 100,000,000 people), and compromised immune systems.
( Note: The worldwide economic burden of managing obesity and its complications has been estimated at roughly $2 trillion annually or 2.8% of global GDP—nearly as much as smoking, armed conflict and terrorism combined).
The pandemic has us adding fuel to an unhealthy fire. We’re a drinking country. It permeates our culture. It’s been all over the news that since March 2020 when SARS CoV-2 emerged, there’s been a non-surprising increase in alcohol usage. According to ABC news from a study done by the RAND corporation, “American adults have sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, drinking on more days per month, and to greater excess. Heavy drinking among women especially has soared.” The CDC estimated the cost of excessive alcohol use was $249B in 2010. Lord knows what it is now, since the pandemic.
The perilous financial situation that many Americans are facing has made it difficult to justify purchases on more expensive, healthier foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods. To make their money go farther poorer families are buying foods that have long shelf-lives and these foods are often junk. If you live in a Food Desert and have the choice of catching a bus across town to access fresh foods, potentially exposing yourself to the virus OR heading to a nearby convenience store where your money goes farther on limited options of chips and soda, you’re going to do the latter. This junk food exacerbates existing nutritional deficiencies. It is worsening an already precarious health status.
Now imagine, a body whose vascular system has been damaged through years of high blood pressure and diabetes. A heart with clogged arteries that it’s difficult to walk up a single flight of stairs. A set of lungs with almost no capacity for stress. An impaired immune system. Then that body contracts COVID-19. The lungs shut down. A stroke occurs. Cardiomyopathy for a lifetime. Vasculitis and impaired endothelial function from now on.
But it’s more than that. We pretend the data isn’t real, so we don’t wear masks; a minor inconvenience. Masks are NOT a parachute, but are effective. While we all have different risk tolerance levels, the fact that the long-term effects like vasculitis that cause major organ damage over a lifetime come with the COVID-19 bill, we ought to do our best to stop the spread. Our own selfishness gets in the way. We still have people having the cops called on them for not wearing masks in stores ( by the way, they can ask you to wear a backwards hat and if you don’t comply, ask you to leave). We have people scouring the internet looking for conspiracy theories in hopes that it will somehow invalidate the data and anecdotes coming from healthcare workers. What’s their incentive to lie? Oh, they get paid more with a COVID diagnosis? Well, then wouldn’t they WANT the spread to continue? OR maybe they truly are overwhelmed, and they’ve seen non-compliance with simple prevention activities, and would not like to have to triage who lives and who dies.
( Personal note: This is not meant to guilt or shame ANYONE. As you’ll see tomorrow in part 2, individual choices and responsibility matter, but there’s nuance to this. I’ve personally been very overweight, and still do consume alcohol… I even brew beer at home (gasp!). While I’ve made conscious efforts to change to a healthier lifestyle over the years, the environment we find ourselves in makes failure a constant threat).
Andrew L Hamilton 