Since this is my first experience with COVID, I’ll leave off the year of discovery; the -19.
From what I understand, as explained by scientists and medical experts, COVID is a virus. It’s date of arrival in my area is undetermined as we had no way to test for it at the time or the infrastructure. Let’s say December 2019-February 2020.
I am not an expert in science or medicine. So, I accept that I must rely on those that I respect and believe are experts. So, I believe that COVID exists. I’ve seen the explanations, the data, the results.
And, so it exists and is a virus. I know something about computers. So, I think of a virus as a program. A very simple program if we exclude the parts of a virus that adapts and we focus on what a virus does. It infects. It survives (unless the host dies). It doesn’t care if you believe. It doesn’t care at all. It can’t be scared. It can’t be told to avoid the infirm or the aged.
Some of us compare it to the flu. And, it was comparable, in our laymen’s eyes when it first arrived in my community. But, after several months of watching the data, it appears to be only like the flu in that it spreads. Otherwise, it kills far more by percentage of infected. And, it appears to be much easier to spread than a typical flu.
There are some that do not believe the data. This is certainly their choice as they did not gather the data themselves. I suppose I’m less pessimistic when it comes to science and medicine. I think of those fields populated by individuals similar to myself. Trustworthy. Accurate. And yet the ICUs in area hospitals are filling up, at a faster and faster rate as the infection rate increases. The data confirms the results. The results are laying in hospital beds and morgues.
Even if we accept errors in the data, we can reduce or expand the numbers by 10% and still we have strong indicators in the data.
Therefore, I must believe that COVID is real. It’s results are real. After all, I’ve never had reason to not believe any previous worldwide pandemic.
(to be continued)