Good news from Guinea – Two long-haul COVID cases – A drastic remedy – Unusual claims about the vaccines – The situation in Afghanistan – Evevning statistics
The COVID pandemic is not over, but the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is. Unlike the previous Ebola epidemic, which lasted well over a year and killed more than 11,000 people, this outbreak was confined to 16 confirmed cases and 7 probable cases in Guinea, with a total of 12 deaths. Ebola, as the figures indicate, is a far deadlier disease than COVID, but it is also much less transmissible. In addition, the government of Guinea profited by the lessons learned from the previous pandemic: rapid, coordinated response efforts, community engagement, effective public health measures and the equitable use of vaccines enabled it to contain the disease within the country’s borders and to reduce its effects to a minimum in the space of four months.
It is easy to sound optimistic after the strides we have made since January, but the effects of the virus have not ended yet, as the following two sad stories indicate:
Jason Kelk has died of complications from COVID. His name is not familiar here, but he is well-known to Britons, being one of the first COVID patients in the U.K. and one of those who suffered the most from the disease. He was hospitalized in March, 2020. He was already afflicted with Type 2 diabetes and asthma, and when the virus damaged his kidneys and lungs, he was bedridden from that time. In addition, he developed stomach complications that necessitated his being fed intravenously. Earlier this year he appeared to be recovering, starting to walk and coming off a ventilator and a 24-hour kidney filter, and he had progressed to the point of ingesting tea and soup. Then his condition worsened in May. He had to be put back on a ventilator, after which he developed two new infections. In the end he gave up, deciding to withdraw from treatment and to transfer himself to a hospice. The relatives he left behind include eight grandchildren, two of whom he never was able to meet because they were born in the past year and could not be taken on visits to the hospital where he was treated.
Another victim, Heidi Ferrer, is more well-known in this country, being a writer for “Dawson’s Creek.” Technically speaking, the cause of her death was not COVID but suicide; but it was induced by her experiences as a “long-haul” COVID patient. She first contracted the disease in April, 2020, and by June she was bedridden and virtually immobile on account of several veins bursting in her foot. She apparently recovered in August, 2020, but eventually her symptoms recurred and began to worsen to the point that she was unable to walk. By May, 2021 she was bedridden again and in continual pain. After 13 months of struggling she, like Jason Kelk, decided that she had had enough. It was not an impulsive decision made during a momentary depression; she had been contemplating suicide for some time as her condition failed to improve, and she deliberately set her financial arrangements in order and completed a memoir that detailed her experiences with COVID before taking her own life.
Joshua Garza, another patient, has not died from COVID, but after declining to receive the vaccine in January he contracted the disease, which ended up by attacking his lungs and necessitating a double lung transplant. He successfully underwent the surgery on April 13th and was able to regain his strength to the point of being released from the hospital on May 27th. “It was quick, it was within three weeks, the lungs were already shot,” said Garza afterwards. “They’re telling you your lungs are failing, so you don’t know if you’re going to go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow.” Lung transplants are a rare intervention for COVID patients but Garza’s experience is not unique: Houston Methodist, the hospital at which he was treated, has already performed eight double lung transplants on COVID-19 patients, and has several more patients who are on life support while they await transplants.
Although, as my inclusion of this last story might indicate, I am a great believer in the efficacy of the COVID vaccines, I do not support all of the claims that some of their adherents advance. Ramdas Shet, from the Indian state of Karnataka, released a video (which has since gone viral) claiming that the vaccine has endowed him with magnetism and that metal objects have been sticking to him of their own accord ever since he received his first dose. He and people making similar claims have received offers of up to £1000 if they can validate their condition. At least the reaction in India is one of approval. Sherri Tenpenny, a physician in the Cleveland area and an anti-vaxxer, has urged in support of her views a claim that spoons have stuck to people who have received the vaccine; and Joanna Overholt, who previously worked in an intensive care unit and is currently a nurse practitioner student, spoke during Tuesday’s Ohio House Health Committee hearing in an effort to support the good doctor’s assertion by sticking a key and bobby pin to her skin. “Explain to me why the key sticks to me. It sticks to my neck, too,” Overholt said. “If somebody could explain this, that would be great.” Since both of these fell off shortly afterwards, I proffer the explanation of pressure from her fingers while her hand was still within a few millimeters from her body as she first applied these objects to her skin.
Amid the reports about how the virus has unfolded in India and Nepal, there is another country in the region that has been overlooked: Afghanistan. The number of COVID patients there has risen exponentially within the past few weeks, the hospitals have the familiar shortages of beds and of oxygen canisters, and only one million doses of the vaccine have been administered in this country of 36 million people. The WHO estimates that about 10 million people have contracted the disease since February. Officially the reported figures are about 37,000 cases to date and 1,300 COVID-related deaths; but since only 90,000 Afghanis have undergone testing since the pandemic began, these figures are almost certainly gross under-estimates. Needless to say, the ongoing internal conflict between the government and Taliban militants also makes the pandemic impossible to control. More than half the districts in Afghanistan are controlled by the militant group, and hardly any tests are available in these regions. The majority of the populace have also largely ignored physical distancing recommendations by health officials.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 178,936,789; # of deaths worldwide: 3,874,803; # of cases U.S.: 34,401,206; # of deaths; U.S.: 617,079.