Posted by: Francis Koster Published: November 22, 2020

Your role in Civil Defense as we battle COVID-19

There are four facts in this article you do not know.
Our population of Covid-19 infected people is split into two groups.  The first group is those who have developed symptoms and are now visible and counted.  That number is growing about 162,000 per day in America.[1]  That highly visible group is spawned by a second invisible group – those who are infected but do not know it.   Scientists have shown that during last week, 3,600,000 Americans had the virus, did not know it, and each of those will infect about 3 others during the next 10-day window.[2],[3],[4],[5]
Note: After publication of this article which quoted directly from The Wall Stree Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-people-might-one-person-with-coronavirus-infect-11581676200 a sharp reader called into question the "infect 3 others" statement. I reached out to the scientiset who was quoted, and learned that this ratio only applied when no evasive action (masks, stay at home, no bar attendance, ect.) was present in society. If the devree of social compliance with public health guidance in place in The United States during the period covered by the research was still being followed, the research indicated that each unknowing infected person would likely infect 1 person, not 3. I deeply regret having relied on a secondary source (The Wall Street Journal) for my quote, and apologize to my readers for this error in fact.
 We live in a country that is #1 in the world both in the number and the percentage of our population of `Covid-19 infections.[6]  Our hospitals are already overwhelmed, do not have enough doctors and nurses, and patients are in beds in parking garages, tents, and hallways.[7]
About one in five of those confirmed infected develop or increase long term heart issues.[8],[9]Additionally, about half of people with no or mild symptoms had resulted in lung damage.[10],[11]Long term damage to the liver is also suspected[12] and mental health issues are reported soaring.[13]
As I look back over my life, and the various challenges we faced as a country, I recall when the military draft was in place.   To protect our country from Nazis and Communists, laws were in place that forced millions of men and women to leave their homes, don a uniform, and made to learn to stand at attention, follow orders, and do many things to protect America.  Their lives were changed forever. When out in public in uniform I would routinely be told “thank you for your service”, and praised for being patriotic.    We had the Civil Air Patrol, where citizens noted and reported to authorities airplanes flying overhead, and neighbors planting victory gardens. In North Carolina citizens patrolled the beach after dark to identify beachfront homes with lights on and no shades pulled down – these lights would allow enemy submarines to see the profile of blacked-out American freighters delivering food and weapons to our waterfront military installations, and torpedo them.
Our citizens mobilized to protect ourselves.
Today, we are at war with a different kind of invader, and our Civil Defense system is not working. Unless we come together, much worse lays ahead, caused by these people who are infected but do not know it – respectable-looking people that carry a hidden bomb that damages people up to 30 feet away.  If one bomber without symptoms infects 3 over 10 days, and those 3 infect another 9 over the following ten days, and during the next 10 days those 9 also infect 27, ten days later (40 days from today) that one bomber infected 81 people.
Forty days from now is Christmas and New Year’s week.
There are two (soon to be three) Civil Defense techniques that can be used to protect yourself and your family from these bombers.  The first is to hide from them (social isolation). The second is to wear a bomb-proof vest – sorry, a bomb-proof mask.  If the infected but unaware bomber wears one, the bomb blast is reduced because they infect people only up to around six feet, not thirty. If you also wear one, you increase your own level of protection  – and will not become a bomber yourself.
The soon-to-be third tool to protect yourself and others is our Civil Defense vaccination plan.
Vaccination is like Santa Claus giving away free bomb-proof vests.  Success requires around 90% of all Americans - three hundred two million people - to accept this gift.  The new vaccinations both require two doses about a month apart[14] - up to six hundred and four million injections to be delivered. It will take up to a year, and lots of volunteers, to deliver them to the majority of Americans.[15]
This plan has three major weaknesses.   The first is kids.  One in five Americans is under 18 years old.[16]  Only one vaccination is being researched for children, and it will take a long time to verify its’ safety because the side effects in children often do not show up for several years. Infected children make up about 10.5% of all reported U.S. cases, and the percentage is rising.  Without a vaccination for the kids, the only people who can protect them are their adults who get the vaccination, wear masks, and act as human shields.
The second weakness in our Civil Defense system is that in October, almost half (42%) of adult Americans said they would not open Santa’s gift and take the vaccine.[17]
Do the math:  If one in five Americans are children who will not have access to a vaccination, and almost half of all adults say they will not take it, less than half the population will be vaccinated.  The mask-less infected bombers will roam free with millions of targets for years.
And now the hard part of this article for me to say:  Our major weakness today is that we have 336 million Americans to shield from a minority of resident Americans that are not willing to be inconvenienced to protect their fellow citizens.
At this point, we are not fighting with another country.  We are in an uncivil war.
I anticipate I will hear Taps being played over and over again.
Authored by Francis Koster Ed. D.
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[3] Study by MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London as reported here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-people-might-one-person-with-coronavirus-infect-11581676200

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