Covid by Numbers
What scale of health crisis warrants a global pandemic-style response?
I did some figuring. Pandemic related. Because I was curious. And I should have been doing other more important things but heck sometimes it pays to follow a lead.
And besides I couldn’t find any story or stats to answer my question.
The question on my mind was:
How does the risk of Covid-19, as a global pandemic, compare to other current, ongoing incidents of chronic health issues and hospitalizations in Canada?
I was particularly interested in those numbers (ie. quantifiable incidence rates) that qualify the Covid-19 virus as a pandemic. And to compare, for purpose of scale, as to how the incidence rate of another epidemic of chronic health issue (requiring hospitalization and associated healthcare costs/resources) might rank.
And because I’m not a scientist, or a doctor, or an epidemiologist, etc. I thought to come at this by way of research, which is something I can do well enough.
It should be noted up front, this simple study speaks only to our situation here in Canada. And to be clear, for those who ask why am I comparing apples and oranges, please note: I know the difference between a communicable virus, like the coronavirus, and a non-communicable condition like asthma. The very point of this exercise, if I may call it that, is to compare what volume of patient numbers (and corresponding diagnosis) warrants a ‘pandemic’ style response on par with that which we are witnessing globally in response to this so-called Covid-19 pandemic.
I grounded this study with our Canadian Govt. up-to-date stats for Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths, which you too can find here.
And from this source I retrieved these stats:
As of AUGUST 20, 2020:
11,345 hospitalized COVID cases in Canada
Detailed case report forms have been received from provinces and territories for 8,999 deaths related to COVID-19.
Okay. For comparison, I thought to investigate ASTHMA incidence rates. As we know that asthma is a serious, chronic health issue, often debilitating for life, and often diagnosed in children. In other words, diagnoses of asthma often amount to a life sentence with this chronic health ailment.
So I turned my attention to Canadian govt. stats on asthma incidence rates here.
Turns out the overall asthma incidence rate is off the charts so I narrowed the scope, and retrieved just the incidence rate for children, ages 1–4.
This is what you find:
“Incidence rates for asthma by age group showed a similar pattern to prevalence, but the peak incidence rates occurred at earlier ages. The peak incidence rate was seen in the 1–4 age group with 2796.4 cases per 100,000 population for males and 1821.6 cases per 100,000 population for females…”
I added the male and female cases (per 100,000)
2796.4
+1821.6
— — — — -
4618.0
Thus establishing a new incidence rate in 2011/2012 of 4,618 per 100,000 population (boys&girls aged 1–4) in Canada. Okay…
I turned to 2015 Census data to find out the population of Canadian children under 4 year of age. Here it is:
0 to 4 years
1,928,878
(And note from data on other years — the population is consistently above 1,900,000.)
So now back to the data on asthma incidence rates. Remember, we’re talking ONLY those kids up to four years old. Those stats were referenced (interestingly) only in terms of representation per 100,000. So:
19 x 4,618 = 87,742
So, if my data math serves correctly, we have somewhere in the vicinity of 87,742 new diagnosed cases of ASTHMA among Canadian children aged 1–4 — every year. Most of those kids will live their entire lives with related chronic health complications, and many will die needlessly from the condition. And we all live with the significant health costs associated.
To compare with the outcome thus far of Covid-19:
Covid has been responsible for 11,345 hospitalized cases — TOTAL in Canada — after seven months, of this global pandemic.
Which leads me to wonder:
Why have our health authorities never declared ASTHMA to be a health crisis worthy of a pandemic response, on par with that of Covid-19?
Surely our gross annual systemic health costs for asthma treatment must far outweigh those costs associated thus far with Covid-19 hospitalizations and treatment (strictly speaking)?
We do know that outside of natural pollens and allergens, there is a mountainous trove of research which has long confirmed tobacco cigarettes and second-hand smoke to being directly linked to the rise in global asthma incidence rates.
More recently, published research has supported causal links with environmental chemical toxins and pollutions, such as pesticides, and we now have clear evidence that their prolific use in the corporate agricultural sector was maintained by lies through fraudulent research.
And we know that four million children develop asthma every year as a result of air pollution from cars and trucks. That equates to 11,000 new cases of asthma a day, and that’s just the children.
So I wonder, why haven’t our public health authorities asked us to ‘consider others’ and maybe drive less?
Why haven’t they banned cigarettes? Or known-toxic pesticides?
Now my new question is this:
Given the sheer pandemic scale of this chronic inflammatory disease, given the anticipated climb of incidence and related health costs and concerns, and given that asthma sufferers seemingly occupy GREATER overall hospital and healthcare resources than COVID-19 sufferers (now and seemingly forever) and given that this disease often inflicts children, and can be debilitating for life, if not fatal— why does asthma not warrant a pandemic-style response?
Am I missing something here?
Did I go wrong in the math?
Help me please to understand.
Sincerely,
Darren Alexander
Further facts on asthma:
According to WHO estimates, there were 417,918 deaths due to asthma at the global level and 24.8 million disability adjusted life years (DALYS) attributable to Asthma in 2016.
Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory condition in childhood. (p.27)
Asthma deaths will increase in the next 10 years if urgent action is not taken.
Vehicle pollution results in 4m child asthma cases a year.
In 2014, 8.1% of Canadians aged 12 and older, roughly 2.4 million people, reported that they had been diagnosed with asthma by a health professional.
Up to 90% of deaths and 70% of emergency admissions with asthma are associated with potentially preventable factors.
Related Reading:
Why do we still permit tobacco use?
Norman H Tiffin, BSc MSA FCSRT (2015)
“Our governments collect $2.81 billion in tobacco sales taxes federally (2), which is >1% of all federal government spending in 2013 (3). That’s staggering. Fully 1% of federal spending from a substance that only produces disease, debilitation and death — with no benefits…”
