Debunking Covid-19 Misinformation (No, it’s nowhere near over)

18 min readJan 13, 2021

Look, I realize there’s a LOT of pressing news right now, but 23,000 Americans died of Covid-19 in the last week and a lot of folks are being way too cavalier about the pandemic we’re in.

So I’m gonna debunk some of the dangerous misinfo I’ve seen about Covid, because this thing isn’t anywhere near over. All sources cited at the bottom.

Covid isn’t any worse than the seasonal flu.

It’s hard to imagine after more than 380,000 deaths, some Americans STILL think Covid-19 isn’t any worse than the seasonal flu, but hey, this is the same country who voted Jennifer Hudson off American Idol in seventh place (yes, I’m still mad), so judgement isn’t always our strong suit.

For comparison, in the last decade 35,900 people died from the flu in an average year. The math isn’t that complicated: Covid has already claimed over 10 times as many lives as an average flu season, and that’s WITH never-before seen shutdowns and social distancing efforts slowing its spread (more on that later).

It turns out, Dr. Fauci’s prediction back in early March that Covid could be 10 times more deadly than the flu was not only correct, it appears to have been an understatement. Just like my prediction that JHud “might have a career” after American Idol.

More Americans died in the last week than in the entire 2019–2020 flu season. Wear a mask and distance.

Even if it’s bad, I heard Covid is 99.9% survivable.

I’m not sure why this “statistic” keeps floating around, but it’s not only false, it’s pretty easily provable as false. Here’s how we know it’s NOT true: Over 380,000 Americans have already died from the Covid-19. The U.S. population is about 328 million. That means that more than .1% of the U.S. population is literally ALREADY dead from Covid-19.

If Covid were 99.9% survivable, then that would have to mean that everyone in the U.S. who was going to get Covid has already had it and nobody else will get it or die, starting last month.

If that sounds as preposterous to you as Glenn Close STILL not having an Oscar, well, you’re not wrong. Wear a mask and distance.

But it’s close to being over.

Wouldn’t that be nice! But no. The CDC’s best estimates are that by the end of September, around 15% of the U.S. population had had Covid. Randomized antibody testing in hot spots has also indicated similar numbers. By now, we’re probably in the range of 20–25% who’ve had Covid.

We don’t know the exact ratio we need to hit herd immunity, but it’s likely around 70–90% of the entire population. Which means we’re less than 1/3 of the way there AT BEST.

If Covid were a romantic comedy, we’re not even at the meet-cute. Wear a mask and distance.

Yeah, but the Covid death totals themselves are inflated.

Nope. The official tally is actually UNDERCOUNTING Covid deaths.

How do I know that? Because I’m a magical trans-inclusive wizard.

Just kidding. Not about the trans-inclusive part, just the wizard bit. I don’t have magical powers, but I do have an internet connection and the ability to read the CDC’s excess mortality data for 2020.

It turns out that, year to year, a remarkably similar number of people tend to die relative to our total population. That’s because most causes of deaths are relatively steady and even large events (like terrorist attacks or a bad flu season) don’t change the overall numbers much. 2020 is different.

As of October 15 (and prior to the current wave of deaths), there were an estimated 299,000 more deaths in the U.S. that would be expected. At that time, the official Covid death toll was approximately 218,000. That means that by mid-October 2020, there were around 81,000 excess deaths that weren’t part of the official Covid death toll and have no other clear explanation. There have been no other significant increases in other causes of death in 2020, not even suicide (more on that later).

Final excess death numbers for 2020 aren’t available yet, but rough figures look to be around 400,000 excess deaths (and that’s not including this past two weeks, which have been the deadliest yet).

If you really truly believe that at least 380,000 Americans have NOT died from Covid so far, how can you explain all these excess deaths? What data supports your theory? Or is it just a feeling you want to be true and so you’ve decided it must be, like the way JK Rowling wanted to be an anti-trans bigot and just made herself one?

The deaths are real and no amount of wishing they weren’t will change that. Wear a mask and distance.

I saw a meme that said only 6% of those in the overall mortality count, actually died from Covid.

I saw that meme too. First, just as general advice, please don’t get your news from memes.

But more importantly, that 6% meme — and others insinuating that something other than Covid is killing all these people — completely misconstrues how deaths are documented.

First, the basics: Death certificates often list multiple causes, or conditions. If you have an underlying medical condition and then get Covid and die, your death certificate will likely list both. Many of those conditions are things average Americans live with everyday, stuff that around HALF of all Americans have, like obesity, diabetes, asthma, COPD, high blood pressure. I have one. Odds are half the folks you know have one too.

But that’s only a small fraction of death certificates listing multiple causes. So what are the rest?

You know that bullshit phrase “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”? Yeah, well the gun kinda helps, doesn’t it? In fact, without the gun, that person would just be flexing their pointer finger in the air and nothing would be tearing through their victim’s flesh.

Viruses are like that. They don’t exactly kill you alone, they attack your lungs or your heart or your kidneys, and then when those organs fail, you die.

Viruses don’t kill people, organ failure kills people.

Covid attacks your body and causes pneumonia and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, cardiac failure, respiratory failure and all sorts of other awful ways to die. And when you do die, your death certificate will list both Covid AND the fatal condition it caused.

But rest assured, it’s the Covid that killed you.

Pneumonia appears on about 1/3 of all Covid death certificates. Respiratory failure appears on 1/3 as well. Cardiac arrest or heart failure appear on 1/5 of them. When people talk about Covid death certificates listing other causes, this is what they’re actually talking about. Wear a mask and distance.

But wouldn’t some of those people have died anyway?

Yeah, obviously *some* folks who got Covid and died would have passed from another cause within a year anyway. I’ve seen some estimates as high as 15% of all Covid deaths, but that’s only based on the official numbers, which we know are too low.

Since we know there’s been around 400,000 excess deaths in all of 2020, with Covid being the only significant change over previous years (again, I’ll get to debunking the “suicides are skyrocketing” myth in a sec), we know that whatever share of Covid victims who would have died anyway are VASTLY outweighed by those who wouldn’t have.

There are around 400,000 extra people who died last year who weren’t supposed to. If you don’t believe Covid-19 was the cause, then I’d be delighted to hear whatever crackpot theory you’ve got to explain it (JK, I really don’t).

If you have a conspiracy theory to explain those excess deaths here’s what I’d like you to do: Write them down and have them printed on a small piece of cloth; attach string loops to the side of the cloth; wear the cloth over your mouth whenever you’re in close proximity to other people, but generally try to avoid other people. In other words…

Wear a mask and distance.

Even if Covid is deadly, there’s no evidence the lockdowns, social distancing requirements or mask wearing works.

To put it simply, this statement is false. There have been HUNDREDS of academic studies from just about every school of public health and health agency (links below) looking at the impact of lockdowns and social distancing efforts and the vast majority reach the painfully obvious conclusion: When you interrupt the spread the virus by reducing the number of opportunities it has to spread, you reduce its spread.

I know that one might be a shocker, so I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath.

In a Lancet meta analysis of 172 different studies of Covid mitigation efforts, they found recommended steps like social distancing and mask wearing led to large, measurable decreases in infections.

Sometimes, epidemiology really is that simple.

To kill people, viruses need to spread. To spread, they need to jump from one human (or occasionally feline) host to another. Covid does this most often by traveling on tiny droplets we emit when we breathe, talk, sing, yell or pretty much just exist within close proximity of others. It has an easier time doing that when those droplets aren’t stopped by a barrier, like a mask. It has a much easier time spreading indoors (where air movement is less likely to carry it away) and especially in spaces that re-circulate air through an air conditioning system (more on all this later).

So it shouldn’t be a major shocker that when governments stop large numbers of people from interacting for prolonged periods of time in indoor spaces like offices, bars, indoor restaurants, churches and theaters, infection rates go down. We’ve seen it happen in literally EVERY country and jurisdiction that has implemented restrictions.

These restrictions may be more effective in some places where compliance with official rules is more culturally acceptable, and they may work much better when they cover larger areas and not just individual cities or counties with porous borders, but they all work to varying degrees.

You don’t have to like these measures. You can think the economic price we’re paying is too high for the benefit of saving at least a million vulnerable lives. We can have a reasonable discussion about the tradeoffs between the individual freedom to “do whatever I want” and the individual freedom to “not die”. But you can’t pretend they don’t work.

Every time a country, state, county or city implements restrictions, infection rates drop within weeks and death rates drop shortly after that. Wear a mask and distance.

But there’s no randomized control trials proving they work.

That’s correct. Conducting RCTs on human subjects with such clear risks to their lives would be medical malpractice. The researcher would need to implement a placebo for half the research subjects that they know is harmful and will lead to many needless deaths.

No one’s ever conducted an RCT to prove drunk driving is more dangerous than driving sober, but we take the ample evidence at face value anyway. We have more than enough evidence that distancing and mask wearing works, there’s no need for RCTs. Wear a mask and distance.

How bad could it have really gotten? Without the lockdowns it couldn’t have been THAT bad.

It’s always hard to estimate how many people WOULD have died in an alternate scenario, because it requires modelling, and modelling can run a wide gamut. But all of the models agree on one thing: The toll would be much higher than it is now. How much higher? Well, we have a few hints.

As I mentioned before, by the end of September, the CDC estimated that 15% of Americans had contracted Covid. Since it often takes several weeks for patients with Covid to succumb, we can look at the official death count from October 15, which was around 216,000 for our estimates.

So if 15% of the U.S. contracting Covid resulted in 216,000 deaths, what would an out-of-control spread have resulted in? Again, this isn’t an exact science, as we don’t know the precise ratio of infected people that would achieve herd immunity. It could be as high as 90%. But let’s use 70% as a nice optimistic estimate. How many deaths would it have taken to get us to 70% infected?

1 million deaths.

And because we know from excess death data that we’re likely undercounting the actual death toll by about 20–30% and the actual herd immunity threshold could be as high as 90%, the total number of dead could have been as high as 1.6 million.

But neither of those numbers is actually correct, because if we had 1–1.6 million deaths in such a short span of time, it would mean by definition that our hospital system would have been overwhelmed and crushed. There aren’t enough ICU beds, nurses, doctors, medicines and ventilators to treat a pandemic THAT out of control — we’re already at the breaking point in some cities with only a fraction of it.

Which means MANY of the people we’re counting on surviving in those estimates thanks to medical intervention, wouldn’t survive.

And not just Covid patients: Car accidents, heart attacks, strokes, self harm injuries — all of them would become more fatal as the ability to access life-saving treatment becomes strained and the system breaks.

So 1–1.6 million deaths is the LOW water mark. The death toll of an out-of-control pandemic with no efforts to slow its spread would most assuredly be much higher. It feels like we’re heading that way and there’s only one way to stop it. Wear a mask and distance.

What about just protecting older and sicker people and letting the rest of us live our lives?

Ah yes, the Swedish model. Listen, if this was April, you could make that argument, but it’s December and not even Sweden is making that argument anymore.

The Swedish model is essentially allowing society to function as close to normal as possible while trying to protect your oldest and most vulnerable people. No lockdowns. No mandates. No survivors.

Kidding. It’s not that there’s no survivors, just that there’s fewer of them.

When Covid-19 hit in March, it caught most countries by surprise. It’s hard to compare responses from those first three months, because not every country was hit equally and it took several months for each country to stabilize. By May, however, the hard-hit European countries like Italy, Spain, France and the UK got their Covid rates under control with hard lockdowns and strict social distancing.

So what happened from May onward? How did the Swedish model compare against it’s Western European neighbors, who took a more proactive, restrictive approach?

Not well.

Between May 10th and October 13th, Sweden has had the highest mortality rate of any European nation by a solid margin, averaging 23.5 deaths per 100,000 people. The next highest was the UK (a country with an off-and-on strategy) at 16.3 deaths per 100,000. Most of Europe was doing even better. Italy’s at 9.1, Spain is at 8.6, France is at 7.5.

But it’s Sweden’s Scandanavian neighbors who make for the fairest comparison. Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland all share similar cultures, histories and demographics. So how does Sweden’s 23.5 deaths per 100,000 after May 10th compare to its neighbors? Denmark’s rate was 2.1. Finland is 1.4. Norway is 1.

That means the mortality rate in Sweden was more than 20 times the rate in Norway, 16 times the rate in Finland and 11 times the rate in Denmark.

As a result, Sweden finally announced in November that it was changing course and adopting a proactive distancing approach like its neighbors.

The problem with the Swedish model is that you can’t protect your most vulnerable people when a virus as infectious as Covid is running rampant. We can’t seal 20% of our population inside a hermetic bubble. They have to have SOME contact with the outside world — some of them have jobs they can’t afford to leave and many of them have care needs that require exposure to others. When the outside world is filled with Covid, even those taking the most extreme precautions are at risk.

When those of us who are younger and healthier practice safe behaviors, we make the world safer for all of them. Wear a mask and distance.

Even if lockdowns and distancing do work, what about the costs? Think of the increases in depression and suicide.

I’m not gonna pretend that shutdowns or social distancing measures don’t have negative externalities. Covid-related depression is real and harmful. But we need to address the myth of the “lockdown suicide boom”.

The threat of spiraling suicides is an argument I’ve seen brought up since March, as an excuse to forgo the hard work of trying to limit the damage of Covid-19 and let it run its course (aka kill millions of people). What’s worse is that this argument is almost always employed up by people who are against the kind of government programs in normal times that would ACTUALLY reduce suicide (universal, free mental health support; a stronger safety net for those in financial trouble; gun control; etc.)

But if suicides WERE spiraling out of control, then that would certainly be something to keep in mind when talking about Covid mitigation. So let’s look at the suicide rate.

It can often take more than a year to get a complete picture of the present suicide rate, but now that 2020 is over, we’ve got plenty of preliminary data points that can give us clues as to what’s happened.

In October, the National EMS Information System (NEMSIS), which tracks first responder data, released 911 call data over the last three years, to help compare what changed since the pandemic began. The results? As of October 2020, there has been no measurable increase in the rate of suicide-related calls (and even perceivable decreases some weeks).

In November, the BMJ (Britain’s top medical journal) released an analysis of suicide rates since the start of the pandemic. They looked at data from Massachusetts, Australia, the UK, Norway and Japan and found that it suggests there has been no rise in the suicide rate in any of them, and that in Norway and Japan there was actually a small decrease during the spring (they attribute that to a “pulling together” phenomenon).

Look, depression is real and it’s harmful. Suicide is a national tragedy even in the best of times. And I’m all for proactive solutions to help reduce both. But using suicide as an excuse to not do the right thing and protect human lives is bullshit and it needs to be called out. There is no measurable evidence of any significant increase in the suicide rate as a result of Covid mitigation measures.

Yes, social distancing comes at a cost to mental health. But I can’t imagine watching millions of our friends and family die painful and isolated deaths because we all just HAD to go to Chili’s is great for our mental health either. Wear a mask and distance.

I’m young and healthy, shouldn’t I be able to make my own choices about how much risk I want to take.

Think of Covid risk like drunk driving. Yeah, there’s a risk to yourself, but it’s not ONLY you. There’s other cars on the road, and while YOU might be fine, THEY might not.

Viruses don’t exist in a vacuum, and they aren’t able to reach those most vulnerable without passing through a bunch of young healthy people first. The risk is shared, whether you like it or not.

So while you might be willing to take that risk, are you also willing to risk everyone else in your life? Your family? Your friends? Their families? The checkout lady at the grocery store? Her mother? Your mailman? His wife? Your kid? Their teacher?

If you can’t bring yourself to take precautions for your own life, do it for someone else. Wear a mask and distance.

But the vaccine is here, now it’s all over!

Unfortunately, no. We’ll be safe from Covid once we reach herd immunity through the vaccine, which means that at least 70% of the population needs to get vaccinated. Until then, there’s still a lot of risk.

We know the vaccine is effective at helping people not get sick, but it’s not clear if it prevents them from transmitting the virus onward. So it’s possible that before we reach herd immunity, even asymptomatic, vaccinated people can transmit the virus to others.

On an individual level, the vaccine is super effective, but not 100%. The older you are, the less effective it is. If you’re under 65, the Moderna vaccine is 95.6% effective, which is really incredible. But in those over 65 (those most vulnerable), Moderna’s vaccine drops to 86.4% effective. That means for 1 in 7 vaccinated seniors, it’s as if they were never vaccinated at all.

And while 1 in 7 may sound like not much, that could still mean hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.

But those deaths can be prevented if we reach herd immunity — if enough of us get vaccinated, then the virus’s chances of transmitting from person to person start to drop until eventually, it can’t find enough viable hosts for those 1 in 7 vulnerable seniors to matter. The rest of us being vaccinated will protect them.

But we aren’t going to get to that point for months. Until then, wear a mask and distance.

So how do we stay safe and keep vulnerable people safe without harming our own mental health?

That’s a good question. And there’s no 100% perfect answer. The best answer I can give you is: Reduce your risk however you can, and if you NEED to break social distancing protocols, do it in the SAFEST way possible.

What does that mean? Well first it’s important to review the different levels of risk of various activities and environments. We know a few things about how Covid spreads, specifically that it spread more easily:

Inside than outside.

When people don’t wear face masks.

When people are close together.

With sustained exposure over time.

When people project their voice, yell, laugh, sing or cough.

Now here’s the tricky thing: All these risk factors intersect with each other. If you stand six feet apart, but don’t wear masks, your risk is higher. If you wear facemasks, but meet inside for a sustained period of time, your risk is higher.

With that being said, there’s basically three incredibly risky behaviors that, if you can avoid until this is over, you’ll dramatically reduce your risk and the risk to others:

Eating with other people. This sucks, because lord knows I love a social meal. But you just can’t keep a facemask on while eating. There’s a lot of data indicating that restaurants are a top vector for Covid spread. Hosting a dinner party at home is just as dangerous. Indoors + no masks = bad idea.
Bars. There’s simply no safe way to be inside a bar during Covid. Outdoor patios might be slightly less risky than an indoor bar, but they’re still hella risky. The close proximity to others and the inability to wear a facemask while drinking make bars a perfect vector for Covid. Pretend your friend is performing improv there and avoid it.
Going to the movies, theater or church/temple. Any indoor setting where you’re breathing recirculated air while sitting near other people for a sustained period of time is not safe. Six feet apart means nothing in these circumstances — with enough time and the right conditions, Covid can spread over 20 feet indoors. And masks are minimally helpful here. Outdoor theaters/churches are safer than indoor, but unless there’s real efforts at distancing and no singing, it’s not safe.

With that being said, I’d like to end with some proactive tips of lower-risk things we CAN do until this thing is over:

Form a pod. A pod is a small unit of friends or family who only intermix maskless and indoors with each other. If you live alone, this is a must for your mental health wellbeing. The most important thing is to make sure that each member takes it seriously and isn’t mixing with others outside your pod and/or a member of a different pod. Keep it small and only with people you trust and you should be fine. If anyone needs to travel or visit family or take a break, just make sure they quarantine from the pod for two weeks before rejoining the rest indoors and maskless (a negative Covid test isn’t good enough to rejoin faster).
Meet outside. While winter is making this harder, it does have one positive effect, which is that mask wearing is a lot less awkward in the cold. We all need real-life, face-to-face interaction with others outside our pod/home, so take it outside. Go for a walk together. Sit in a park or backyard. Play mini golf. Just keep a reasonable distance and wear and mask and your risk will remain very low.
Don’t underestimate video calling. I’ve avoided it at times because it doesn’t feel as authentic as real-life interaction, but it’s much better than not seeing your loved ones. Make time to catch up with your support network over video chat, especially if they aren’t in your pod or can’t meet up for a walk.
Take a low-risk local vacation. If you can avoid planes/trains/buses, please do — driving is much safer. Hotels appear to be relatively safe for Covid, as long as you avoid close contact in the lobby areas. Airbnb’s might be even better. Getting away from your apartment/home is especially important during Covid-19, so if you can take a short vacation to somewhere within a day’s drive, go for it. Just follow the same principles while traveling you would at home (keep it outdoors, wear a mask and distance yourself).

If you can avoid risky behavior, please try to avoid it. If you can’t, at least try to minimize your risk while doing it. Wear a mask and distance.

You stopped making jokes towards the end, what’s with that?

Honestly, it’s hard finding humor in all this. We have the tools to literally save the lives of our fellow humans and yet, we seem unable to use them when it’s needed most. This wave is proving particularly deadly and isn’t anywhere near done. We’re going to be crossing the half-million dead mark soon. This shit sucks.

I wish I could end with a fun pop culture joke, but I’m out of them.

Get vaccinated when you can. Be safe. Stay away from bars, indoor restaurants and theaters. Wear a mask. Distance. And I’ll see you on the other side.

-Jed

SOURCES:

Source: CDC influenza data:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=While%20the%20impact%20of%20flu,61%2C000%20deaths%20annually%20since%202010.

Source: CDC estimates 15% of the U.S. has had Covid as of Sept 30

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1780/6000389

Source: CDC estimates 299,000 excess deaths in 2020 as of Oct 15

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

Source: CDC excess death data

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Source: Debunking the “only 6% Covid deaths are real” viral meme https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/cdc-did-not-admit-only-6-of-recorded-deaths-from-covid-19/

Source: CDC data on Covid comorbidities