It’s been a year and a half since the death rate from Coronavirus hit its peak. At this point in time, regardless of vaccinations, the pandemic is winding down.

Don’t misunderstand though. Strange things could still happen. But a growing body of experts think that we are gaining ground, and that the Delta strain is as bad as SARS-CoV-2 is capable of being. It’s a spike protein deal.

The top line is recovery rate. 97.8% now. The bottom is death rate. Just 2.2% now. Worldometers.info

Cases went up like a helium balloon in March last year. The new variants aren’t making a new peak. Our World in Data.

We humans have suffered through far worse pandemics in the past.
The media coverage and the ongoing fears and actions are more propaganda than accurate reporting of reality. We’ve heard it said that the U.S. messed up with Covid. But if you take the 738,567 people who have died so far and divide it by the U.S. population of 333,516,280 right now, you get to the fact that out of any random group of 452 Americans, one of them has died from Covid-19.

That’s how I deal with data, I make it so you could imagine 452 people in an auditorium, then one person is removed. This is why covid isn’t depopulating the U.S. in any noticeable way. Yes, some of you may know someone who died. It’ll probably be an oldster like me. But plenty of Americans don’t personally know anybody who has died from it.

And don’t forget the fear and terror. 15,000 years ago people were still close enough to nature and in touch with the land — death was known and seen and was a normal part of the life cycle. Now most Americans are scared.

That has not changed (except for Queen Elizabeth and billionaires), but nowadays, especially with covid, the dying get hidden and quarantined in hospital beds and then the poor souls get whisked away by ambulances after they die.

This is all modern, big-city, big-government style. You can’t get the closure you need if you can’t say goodbye to the newly dead.

I’ve cared for about 8 or 9 people as they died, and there’s that magic moment of death when your world changes just like that because the dying person essentially no longer exists. There is a sense of no-one ‘being home’ in the appearance of someone newly dead. That’s a common reaction if you’re a doctor or nurse or otherwise taking care of the dying. Please make sure the person really is dead though. You can still be conscious 4 or 6 minutes after you ‘die.’ It’s a process.

None of this is bad or good, it’s just a fact. The dead person will never complain and we survivors will not ever have another conversation with the newly deceased.

Here’s a sweet and knowledgeable article about people who are dying and caregivers’ responses:

Signs of death: 11 symptoms and what to expect

Let’s see. I mentioned some historical stuff… yeah, pandemics in the past. This one’s fascinating:

A coronavirus epidemic hit East Asia 20,000 years ago, new study shows

Here’s the part I wanted you to read in that link above:

(CNN) Over the past 20 years, people have faced a series of outbreaks caused by coronaviruses, including SARS, MERS, and Covid-19. But humans may have faced the disease millennia ago, new research suggests.

A team of researchers from Australia and the United States has found evidence of a coronavirus epidemic that broke out more than 20,000 years ago in East Asia, according to a study published in the Current Biology scientific journal on Thursday.

In the study, the researchers studied the genomes of more than 2,500 people from 26 different populations around the world. They pinpointed the earliest interaction of the human genome with coronaviruses, which left genetic imprints on the DNA of modern-day people in East Asia.

The genomes they studied contain evolutionary information about humans tracing back hundreds of thousands of years, said lead author Yassine Souilmi — information we’ve only learned to decode in recent years.

Viruses work by making copies of themselves. However, they don’t have their own tools to do the duplication. “So they actually depend on a host, and that’s why they invade a host and then they hijack their machinery to create copies of themselves,” Souilmi said.

Readers! Just to be clear. I’m giving you quotes and links because I could, of course, have just made these claims, but we’re talking about life and death and disease. I’m hand-picking the facts that you might appreciate. I don’t have confirmation bias, FYI. I am always trying to see all sides of a question. (That’s the scientific method.)

Covid can kill you, oh yes. I died for a moment in January 2020 when it got me. I had to clear my own airway and convince my heart to start beating again. Then, in the interests of what Covid can do to you even if you survive, I’ll tell you about one or two changes in me.

I was sick in January, and had covid-fog and long-term symptoms until October. Then I caught the Brazil variant. I wasn’t as sick as the first time, so I went to take a walk. I felt tired. Then I had a heart attack in the street.

That was the only bad thing covid did to me. I’m writing now because I’ve been feeling poorly for a week now and my heart is weak. My stomach ignores every other snack I try to eat. But I’m fine and happy and can’t go to a doctor anyway… don’t worry.

Covid did great things for me. My gut biome changed (it’s not a surprise when you know about the viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms working down there.) My physique changed — I lost 70 pounds and my body looks like it did when I was a teen! Otherwise I remain old and arthritic, but that doesn’t surprise me.
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Speaking of death, disease and dying, I looked up some numbers on Worldometers.info. In the U.S, HIV/AIDs has killed 1,300,000 people so far this year, and Covid-19 has killed only 738,000 people since it first started nearly two years ago. Heart disease really kills a lot more people: WHO says it’s about 9,000,000 people a year, worldwide.

See how the propaganda machines are tweaking American’s ability to know what to worry about? I’m trying to make you worry less about death by talking about it. And it’s hard for us scientists convey the difference a handful of zeroes makes when looking at these hard facts.

Think about how much wealthier the already-wealthy became last year — by the same amount of money that was lost to non-wealthy citizens (the rest of us).

When I write for Climate Conscious on Medium I try to convince you that global warming will kill you. We humans are so illogical. We have population overshoot, and are using up the Earth. We have this pandemic because half of 7,900,000,000 the people on Earth are crammed into airless cities.

But nobody will do birth control or is willing to die from overshoot or disease while the world gets hotter every month.

I’m not blaming Americans though. Government and corporations are distracting you and worrying you and keeping you busy, right?

Well, see, I’m not feeling so well, so I’ll quit while I’m mostly ahead and end this rambling but not uninteresting story.

Thanks for listening.
… Fred