Amidst all of the shenanigans between Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci, more statistics seem to be bandied about. Some of them are actually thought provoking and deserve some exploration. Paul has taken it upon himself to be the fly in Fauci’s ointment. At every step of the way he has been there to question his findings and disagree with his conclusions. After all, he’s a doctor. Despite popular belief, he is still licensed to practice as an ophthalmologist. I guess he has that going for him.

This is where we get bogged down into the small details of pitting one expert against another. See, Rand Paul did go to medical school. I’m sure he did take classes in immunology. He probably knows more than the average bear. Yet, when compared with a medical doctor that has spent the past four plus decades studying immunology exclusively there can be no real comparison.

The numbers I saw last night would allow you to question all of this. In 2018, the world death rate was 0.76 percent. That was the same death rate as 2019 and the same as 2020. That nugget of information would lead one to believe that COVID hasn’t impacted the world population at all. I suppose if we looked at this through a vacuum we’d close the book and move on.

Sadly though, we don’t live in the world. We live in the United States. In the United States, death rates have not been level. When one looks at the world rates for just COVID we see something else entirely. Sure, there are disputes about how deaths should be counted, but these deaths are counted the same way around the world and they have yielded very clear results.

So, two things are clear based on the data we do see. First, the overall mortality rate IN THE UNITED STATES has gone up since COVID has been a thing. So, releasing world data is nice, but that demonstrates that most of the world has gotten this thing under control. That’s because when health experts in those countries have proposed ways to get the virus under control, the people in those countries actually listened.

There are nearly eight billion people in the world. The U.S. population represents around four percent of that total. Basic math tells us that the mortality rate would really need to spike in the U.S. for it to have a dent in the overall world mortality rate. This is especially true when we consider that things like masking and heightened hygiene have decreased the amount of flu deaths we normally have and probably improved health on the other end.

Fauci already has earned his keep and faith in his expertise. In addition to all of the potential disasters he has helped prevent in the intervening decades, he had to listen to Trump prattle on with his nonsense for over a year. One can forgive him if he loses his cool even this one time.

So, we can debate whether we should count people who die because of COVID or whether people die with COVID. We can argue as if those verbs, pronouns, and adjectives even matter. The point is that an expert that has been doing this for going on 50 years tells us it matters. Sure, he could be wrong I guess. Science continually improves itself throughout time. If you are prepared to take the word of an eye doctor over him then you take your life into your own hands. Good luck.

Children ask the most fascinating questions. Our daughter is now entering high school, so her questions are more complex than they used to be. She asked a doozy the other day. She asked what we would tell our children and grandchildren about the pandemic. Every once in awhile I allow myself to go down that rabbit hole and this was one of those times.

It hit me like a ton of bricks when I was perusing my Facebook feed the other day. You get the unholy mixture of childhood friends reminiscing about childhood memories with a sudden heavy dose of Anthony Fauci. I’m not exactly sure why Fauci was on so many people’s minds, but the Facebook wall is a veritable Rorschach test of people’s thoughts and feelings.

In the span of just a few minutes of scrolling I found numerous posts that chastised people for doubting Fauci while others were poking fun at him. Strictly speaking, the future is yet unwritten and while we seem to be closer to the end than to the beginning of the pandemic we don’t know for sure how this will end. More than anything else, we don’t know if there will ever be a return to “normal”. They did following the 1918 flu epidemic (it is in fact 1918 despite what our former president said). It just took awhile.

We will be traveling and others will as well, but things are not back to normal. That might never return to normal. We might be looking at the new normal. Obviously, that will be a large part of the story we tell. It could be something as innocuous as telling them what we did during the two or three years of the pandemic or as earth shattering as telling them how we did things before all of the changes.

However, I think Fauci is the key to it all. How people view someone that has spent over 50 years studying infectious diseases is fascinating. We have a very clear divide in the population. Some exist in the current century as they trust subject experts to bring the most up to date information. Some exist in the dark ages where scientific information is met with distrust and disbelief. That information becomes replaced by rumor, innuendo, and “alternative facts”. The vast difference is that the internet seems to be the vector for both.

Specialization is almost as old as time itself. One could argue that job specialization could be the most significant advancement in society itself. Others will argue the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire. Some might argue for the domestication of animals or farming techniques. We each become subject experts in something and society gets by because we have everything covered. Apparently, that’s not good enough anymore.

At least, it’s not good enough for some people. It’s also not good enough for only some specialties. The ones that require more education and training are disdained. Instead some trust their gut. Some trust the random YouTube video from the neighborhood yahoo. They trust anyone but the people trained in this very thing. How our children explain that to their children and grandchildren will be fascinating from a historical perspective. In the here and now it’s just plain sad.