At the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) on April 4, 2020 there was an article by their Medical Policy Advisor Dr. John M. Livingston titled Coronavirus pandemic demands skepticism, good data. In a second article on April 9, 2020 titled Service before self he referred to “concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” In a third article on September 8, 2020 titled Experts and the people he referred to “managing the pandemic.” In a fourth article on October 21, 2020 titled Keep the schools open he referred to “the recent COVID-19 pandemic.”
But on January 29, 2021 there instead was a fifth article titled We are not in a pandemic. What’s going on here? On January 23, 2021 I blogged about how Idaho legislators want to magically declare an end to our pandemic emergency. If there is no pandemic, then they can legitimately end the emergency. The latest article by Dr. Livingston begins:
“I feel like I have been under house arrest for the past 10 months, and for what? The fact is (and this isn’t just John Livingston’s opinion) we are not in a pandemic. Who else agrees with me? Why, the state of Idaho does.
In the state’s Emergency Operations Plan, it very plainly says a moderate pandemic is when there is a fatality rate of 1.5 percent. A severe pandemic is when there is a fatality rate of 2.5 percent. What’s happening in Idaho today? Certainly the 1,700 deaths since March 2020 is heartbreaking, but it is a fact that this number represents 0.1% of the population of the state. Those statistics are consistent with national statistics (assuming that every reported Covid death is truly a Covid death).”
As usual for IFF articles the Doctor did not bother to link to that plan. I looked it up though. The Idaho Emergency Operations Plan web page links to a 410 page .pdf file with the plan. There is an Incident Annex #6 titled Pandemic Influenza which begins on Pdf page 365. On page 369 they discuss II. Planning Assumptions. Dr. Livingston is quoting two fatality rates from that discussion on page 370. But the first paragraph at the top of page 368 under Situation says what we currently have in more general terms (and a fatality rate of 0.1% still could be a pandemic):
“An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that is easily transmissible from person-to-person, can cause serious illness or death, and can sweep across the country/world in very short timeframe infecting a large proportion of the human population. The appearance of a new or “novel” virus is the first step toward a pandemic. Most humans have little or no immunity to the novel virus. Because the virus is new, there is no vaccine and production of a vaccine may take six months or more. Initial vaccine supplies will therefore be limited, requiring prioritization of target populations most in need of the vaccine.”
After I commented on the article as discussed above, Dr. Livingston put up the following medical definition which actually came from a web page at RxList (from William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR):
“Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world due to a susceptible population. By definition, a true pandemic causes a high degree of mortality (death).
I looked up definitions for pandemic in a half dozen medical dictionaries. Except
for Taber’s they don’t say that a pandemic causes a high degree of mortality. It's more geographical, as in the Beatles song title Here, There, and Everywhere.
In the 42ed edition of Black’s Medical Dictionary (2009) it says a pandemic is:
“An EPIDEMIC that has spread so widely that very many people in different countries are affected. Examples include the Black Death - the epidemic PLAGUE, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, that devastated European populations in the Middle Ages, killing more than a third of the people, and the INFLUENZA pandemic of 1919-20 that killed more people than did the First World War. AIDS/HIV is currently pandemic.”
And for epidemic it begins:
“A term applied to a disease which affects a large number of people in a particular locality at one time….”
In the 32nd edition of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (2012) it says a pandemic is:
“a widespread epidemic of a disease. (2) widely epidemic, distributed or occurring widely throughout a region, country, or continent, or globally.”
For epidemic it says:
“occurring suddenly in numbers clearly in excess of normal expectancy; said especially of infectious diseases but applied also to any disease, injury, or other health-related event occurring in such outbreaks.”
In the 4th edition of Melloni’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (2010) it says a pandemic is:
“Denoting an epidemic that affects the population of a wide geographic area.”
And an epidemic is:
“The outbreak and rapid spread of a disease in one community affecting many people at the same time during a specified time period.”
In the ninth edition of Mosby’s Medical Dictionary (2013) it says a pandemic is:
“ (of a disease) occurring throughout the population of a country, a people, or the world.”
And an epidemic is:
“(Adj.) affecting a significantly large number of people at the same time. (Noun) A disease that spreads rapidly throughout a demographic segment of a human population, such as everyone in a given geographic area, a military base, or similar population unit, or everyone of a certain age or sex, such as the children or women of a region. (Noun) A disease or event whose incidence is beyond what is expected.”
In the 23rd edition of Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (2017) it says a pandemic is:
“Pertaining to an exceptionally widespread, even worldwide, disease affecting a very high percentage of people, e.g. HIV/AIDS, the bubonic plague in the middle Ages, or malaria. (2) Such a disease. Many infectious disease specialists believe that a pandemic must also cause severe or life-threatening illness in addition to being widespread.”
And an epidemic is:
“Pertaining to a disease affecting an exceptionally high percentage of people in a community or larger area at one time.”
In the 3rd edition of Webster’s New World Medical Dictionary (2008) it says a pandemic is:
“An epidemic of disease that is very widespread, affecting a whole region, a continent, or the world. Or (2) widely epidemic."
And an epidemic is:
“The occurrence of more cases of a disease than would be expected to occur in a community or region during a given time period. A sudden outbreak.”
It also should be noted that Dr. Livingston’s April 4, 2020 article predicted:
“Seasonal flu takes between 20,000-80,000 lives a year in our country. I believe that as we move forward and as the epidemiological models evolve, the loss of life in our country will be less than double that upper number.”
Instead of his160,000 right now we are at 437,000 or 2.7 times higher. One of his short-term predictions on November 7, 2020 was belied almost immediately, as I blogged about on November 10, 2020 in a post titled A prediction should be good for more than a single day.
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