Jane, you ignorant slut

 Back in the early days of Saturday Night Live they did a take on the 60 minutes segment called point/ counter point.  One of the catch phrases for these skits between Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin. Was Dan Akroyd beginning his counterpoint by saying “Jane, you ignorant slut! That is kind of the way I think of the Adventist Today Dear Aunt Sevvy column. Words of questionable wisdom from an anonymous possibly female or not.

In his/her column for October 25 2021 we learn from this ignorant writer that:

“Yes, healthy people are better able to fight off infections. But it’s been proven repeatedly that viruses are equal opportunity infectors. They do not care if you’re vegan, or if you eat nothing but pork hot-dogs for every meal. If you are unvaccinated you have a 1 in 8 chance of getting sick from Covid, and a 1 in 61 chance of dying. If you are fully vaccinated, you have a 1 in 13,402 chance of getting sick, and a 1 in 86,000 chance of dying from Covid. “ 

Do you believe that? Where is the source for this startling data? None given, a 1 in 61 chance of dying, really. We went through a year of Covid and we had no vaccine.  Did 1 in 61 people die from Covid19? Of course the answer is no. To even come up with the 1 in 61 chance we would have to start at a bit above 70 years of age. I am not going to deal with the other odds given, it is highly doubtful that they are any more accurate, however.

Let's look at what the actual science says. Before we look at the chart let us see what they say about that second Aunty sentence, that viruses are equal opportunity infectors. It is important because as the chart shows there is no equal death rates by age and sex. As you will note below the virus discriminates. Starting in the 20-24 age group men are about twice as likely to die as women.

One more thing to point out. 1 in 61 odds comes to (0.0161) or 1.6129% On the chart we do not see that level of deaths until the 70-74 age range (mean between sexes).  From the American Council on Science and Health explanation connected to the chart

“There are several observations worth noting. First, as we have long known, people of college age and younger are very unlikely to die. The 5-9 and 10-14 age groups are the least likely to die. (Note that an IFR of 0.001% means that one person in that age group will die for every 100,000 infected.) The 0-4 and 15-19 age groups are three times likelier to die than the 5-9 and 10-14 age groups, but the risk is still exceedingly small at 0.003% (or 3 deaths for every 100,000 infected).

Second, the IFR slowly increases with age through the 60-64 age group. But after that, beginning with the 65-69 age group, the IFR rises sharply. This group has an overall IFR just over 1% (or 1 death for every 100 infected). That's a fairly major risk of death. (The red line in the chart marks where the "1% threshold" is crossed.) The IFR then grows substantially and becomes quite scary for people in their 70s and older. People in the 75-79 age group have more than a 3% chance of dying if infected with coronavirus, while people aged 80 and over have more than an 8% chance of dying. That's roughly the same chance as rolling a four with two dice.

Third, the virus discriminates. Beginning with the 20-24 age group, men are about twice as likely to die as women from COVID. This pattern remains in each age group through 80+.

With this data, let's hope that public health officials and policymakers can craft smart guidelines in regard to what parts of society should be locked down and how vaccines should be allocated.

Source: O’Driscoll, M. et al. "Age-specific mortality and immunity patterns of SARS-CoV-2." Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2918-0 (2020).”

 

Don’t think that it is only science that Aunty knows nothing about he/she knows nothing about law either. The Adventist Today column includes this: 

There always seems to be a cry of persecution when a government makes a decision that everyone needs to participate in something for public safety. In 1969 when the government decided that everyone needed to wear a seatbelt there were people who said, “If I want to die in a car accident, I should be allowed to make that choice!”

 No the Federal Seatbelt assembly law was not that everyone needed to wear seatbelts as it was about adding the assembly to cars and it was 1968.

49 CFR § 571.209 - Standard No. 209; Seat belt assemblies.

§ 571.209 Standard No. 209; Seat belt assemblies.

S1. Purpose and scope. This standard specifies requirements for seat belt assemblies.

S2. Application. This standard applies to seat belt assemblies for use in passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses. 

Since the law was about seatbelt assemblies it is highly doubtful that there was even one person whose response was “If I want to die in a car accident, I should be allowed to make that choice!”

 After about 25 years of ads to wear seatbelts the first actual wearing of seatbelts law was in 1984 in New York state