We’re Sheep

By Krys Stefansky

Open your mouths. Say Ba-a-a-a-a......

Feel silly? Well, step out of the herd and demand your rights.

Like information, for instance. Like the Coronavirus R rate.

Don’t know what that is? I’m about to tell you.

R stands for Reproduction. The rate at which a disease spreads from person to person. Keep that in mind.

For months we have been getting useless Coronavirus updates all over the news, daily reports only about the numbers of deaths and numbers of cases.

In the beginning, it seemed important to keep up with the numbers of deaths. That’s what the early charts showed - how many people were dying of the virus across the world.

Awful.

Soon after, once they figured out how to tell, the science and the reporting focused on the numbers of people infected.

OK. Dreadful. For some. Since some of them were also going to die and, we quickly discovered, others would recover but have a really hard time getting back on their feet, and even others may suffer permanent damage.

Pretty darn scary.

But then I began hearing about the R rate. Not here in Virginia, mind you. Our news is still full of the old scary news - the deaths, the infections.

But elsewhere, in Germany, for instance, Chancellor Angela Merkel went live on TV in spring and explained to her entire country about the R rate. And how important it was going to be to track it in each and every part of her nation. It would allow them to control the spread of the virus.

And this is what it is, according to an explainer in a BBC News article from last May:

“There is a simple but crucial number at the heart of understanding the threat posed by the coronavirus,” it said. “It is guiding governments around the world on the actions needed to save lives and to lift lockdown.”

Things like opening businesses, schools, restaurants and the like.

It’s the reproduction number or the R value or R rate or R number.

Here’s how it works: The R rate reveals how fast a disease can spread based on the number of people, on average, one infected person can infect.

Scientists, the article says, use data from the death count, hospital admissions, numbers of people testing positive for the coronavirus and they come up with an estimate of the rate of transmission or the R rate.

If the R rate is greater than one, then the virus keeps spreading exponentially. That’s bad. For example, at an R rate of 2, each infected person infects two more. And each of those infects two more. And so on. Disaster.

But if the R rate is lower than one, fewer people are being infected, the disease slows down and the virus eventually fizzles out, scientists say. This is not likely, however, since behavior and population density affect the R rate and that’s why we will need a vaccine to begin putting an end to this mess.

So, understanding the R rate and knowing the R rate in your area is important. Critical, actually.

This chart shows how quickly an increasing R rate infects a population.

Countries in Europe have constantly updated their populations about their R rates since spring and have had rational discussions based on that constantly fluctuating rate about what to open and when and where to back up a little to let things settle before they try that particular thing again.

So what about us? Nobody here reports our R rate. Why not?

People, the R rate in Virginia on August 15 was below one everywhere EXCEPT in Northern Virginia where on that date it was 1.018. Everywhere else in the state the R rate that week was 0.9 or even 0.8.

Look at the chart yourself:

Chart from the Virginia Department of Health’s Weekly Report published August, 28 2020.

We have to stop sitting still for big servings of useless, scary data on the nightly news and in the daily newspaper.

It is sad that so many people have died of the virus. It is concerning that others are catching it because they might become some of those who get really sick.

But nobody talks about the R rate.

We need to know. We need to be able to SEE FOR OURSELVES how worried to be and how to behave based on that data as we go about our daily business and so that we can understand necessary restrictions and oppose restrictions we have outgrown because of our current R rate.

Google it. Keep track of it. Ask the media that you watch or read to report it.

Don’t be a sheep. Knowledge is power. Be a lion.