When in the Course of Human Events

Today, April 27, is a happy day. Farmview Market opened its restaurant today for customers to dine in, and Kathy and I had our first meal out since March 16. Coincidentally, we were the first diners they served.

The thing that I missed most during the quarantine was dining out. I did not realize just how accustomed we had become to visiting restaurants and enjoying a nice, relaxing meal. A typical week would see us eating out two or three times. It has been a long 41 days.

Yes, some of our restaurants served takeout meals, and we enjoyed several of those, but it just wasn’t the same as sitting down at a table, being served by friends, and facing absolutely no cleanup.

We live in Georgia, and our governor has received his share of criticism for reopening the state to business. I believe he is criticized unjustly. Let us recall just why we decided to shut down commerce in the country. The reason given for this drastic action was to prevent the health care delivery system from being overwhelmed.

We have achieved that objective.

Remember the early days of the pandemic. The usual talking heads predicted overflowing hospitals, triage at the hospital door, life and death decisions based on the presumed likelihood of a patient living a long and useful life afterwards, and all sorts of bio-ethical conundrums related to lack of ventilators, hospital beds, etc.

New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, at least in this country, has bid farewell to the hospital ship the president dispatched to the city. It has released ventilators for distribution to other states. Some hospital wings are nearly empty, as elective surgeries have been postponed. The mission has been accomplished.

My fear, in fact, is that because of the quarantine, we will be hit hard in the fall with a second bout with the Wuhan Flu. We can avoid a devastating second bout, if we have herd immunity. Unfortunately, the quarantine prevents the development of herd immunity.

Herd immunity happens when a fairly substantial part of the population (I’ve heard 60%, but haven’t confirmed that number) develops antibodies to the infection. If enough people have antibodies, the further spread of the infection is inhibited. So, ideally, those with low risk of developing a serious (i.e., fatal) infection get exposed to the virus, recover, and develop antibodies that help prevent the second wave of infections. Those of us at high risk remain sheltered.

This is the approach that Sweden has taken. We should watch the outcome in Sweden, and see what we can learn from it.

By all accounts, the virus is extremely contagious. But the further we go into this wave of infections, the more apparent it is that the fatality rate estimates at the beginning of the quarantine were vastly overstated. For example, an antibody analysis at the University of Miami suggests that the rate of infection in the state is 16 times greater than the initial estimates. So, in calculating the fatality rate, the bigger the denominator, the lower the rate. As best I can tell, this infection has a fatality rate similar to that of the good old fashioned garden variety influenza. That, of course, is bad enough, but we don’t shut down the economy every fall when flu season comes around.

So congratulations to Governor Kemp, and to the governors of Tennessee, South Carolina, and the other states who have decided to re-open cautiously. And congratulations to Farmview Market: breakfast was simply outstanding!