The most remarkable COVID items this week are a CDC item that reports a three-fold increase in cases of SARS-CoV-2 strain BA.2.86. This is a variant descendant of the Omicron strain, and it now accounts for about 9% of US COVID cases. It is highly mutated, but those mutations do not appear to confer greater infectivity or virulence or immune system evasion. Good thing, that. Along with strains EG.5 and HV.1, these three variants account for almost half of COVID cases in the US.
The other important COVID item is that idiot child and Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing Pfizer on the premise of false advertising in advertising its life-saving m-RNA COVID vaccine. It would be poetic justice for Pfizer to counter-sue the State of Texas for claiming that its vaccine is either unsafe or un-efficacious.
This week, Dr. Klotman has turned his attention to a recent surge of respiratory illness in Beijing as well as to matters of Life Expectancy. With regards to the former, it seems that the respiratory illness spike in China is due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae – especially among children. This is a common, bacterial respiratory infection that is treated with Macrolide antibiotics (medicines in the Erythromycin antibiotic class). Unfortunately, bacteria keep developing antibiotic resistance, and this Chinese outbreak of Mycoplasma seems to involve a strain of the bacteria that is resistant to Macrolides. I so hate it when that happens!
On the matter of Life Expectancy, I remember a lecture given by my good friend and former mentor at United Healthcare – Dr. Gennie Pritchett. She observed that two centuries ago, there was a spike in Life Expectancy that was brought about by Sanitation – deaths from Cholera and other waterborne diseases plummeted when sewage and potable water sources were separated. Life Expectancy then remained flat until the development of vaccines. Vaccines conferred yet another boost in life expectancy, as did antisepsis, and pasteurization.
In the first of these, the beneficiaries of greater lifespan had to do nothing to reap the benefits of sanitation. In the second, the individuals had to show up to get a vaccination or care at the hands of practitioners who understood the importance of cleanliness in childbirth or surgery.
In our current world that has antibiotics, chemotherapies, complex surgical and interventional procedures, the main causes of death are chronic illnesses and unintentional injuries – homicides, car accidents, overdoses, etc. Today, more than at any time in the past, life expectancy is most affected by personal and public policy decisions. At the personal level, one can choose to ignore the advice of the medical establishment – masks, vaccines, cancer screenings, diet and exercise recommendations, etc. And the collective public can elect policy makers who will enshrine the right for the public to make bad decisions (imposing low tobacco taxes, passing lax transportation laws that are permissive of distracted driving, seatbelt use, etc.) We have a lot of this idiocy in Texas. Alas!
I’m all for freedom, but can we have too much freedom? Dr. Klotman observes that people with a 4-year college education can expect to live 10-years longer than those without a college education. It isn’t the education that confers greater longevity; it is the choices that people with more education make compared to those without it.