Thought of the Day - March 19 2021 - Meanwhile in the US of A

The land border between the US and Canada has been 'closed' for a year now. Border communities, which thrive on cross-border traffic, have had a tough go of it. A simple example, the PO Box businesses in Blaine have had to rent additional storage for all of the goods stockpiled over the past year as most customers have not been able to 'bring-them-over-the-border' into Canada by car.

While in the US new cases per capita are still significantly higher, unlike Canada their rates continue to fall. They are rapidly converging to our new infection rate - an amazing turnaround!

So, I figure I would have a look and see if they have found a miracle cure or something that we are missing.

First thought was to look at therapeutics and treatments. There is one that is FDA approved, there are two widely-used practices and the FDA is looking at three others that are showing 'promising evidence'.

Guess what is the only approved drug? Probably one of the drugs approved here in Canada, right ( Thought of the Day - January 26 - Therapeutics )? Dexamethasone, nope, it is still in the 'Promising evidence' category. Azithromycin, Ceftriaxone, Enoxaparin even? While some of these may be used to treat side effects, wrong again. So maybe some of the medicines widely used in third-world countries such as Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine? No, both are prohibited for general use in the US. Believe it or not, it is Remdesivir. You know the drug that most countries refused and a few that were suckered in by slick marketing, like Canada, dumped six months ago. The US has wasted $2 billion on the stuff. Okay, you say, so what is in the 'Widely used' category? The two listed here are 'the prone position' and 'respiratory support devices'. Great treatments, but these are standard treatments for extreme respiratory distress and have been employed in Canada from the start.

Vaccinations? The US has vaccinated about 25% of its population. This is fantastic (almost three times higher than Canada) and has probably started to decrease severe illness, but it is not yet at a level high enough to impede spread.

More restrictions? I am not even going to bother looking into this one.

Less testing? Yes, this is a significant driver ( Thought of the Day - February 28 - By the Numbers ). As well as the US practice and reporting changes implemented at the start of the year, also the effect of vaccination may mean a higher percentage of people are asymptomatic and thus do not seek testing.

So before anyone tries to tell you that the US is 'doing great', and therefore we should consider opening the border, as I have said before, take a look at the true indicators - take a look at hospitalizations and deaths.

Here you can see things are far less rosy. The US is still seeing twice as many hospitalizations and four times as many deaths per capita than Canada.

While I have been critical of our limited treatments for COVID-19, I am glad that I am not living in the USA. While things have certainly improved since the start of 2021, rest assured they still have a long way to go before they are close to our domestic situation, and opening the border can be considered.

Cheers

Cliff