Corona Daily 130: Two Morbid Paradoxes

In 2019, every month nearly 117,000 had perished in road accidents around the world. Recently, the Indian transport minister said more Indians die on roads every year than India’s covid-19 toll till date. Of course, road accidents are not infectious and they don’t spread like wildfire. But the point is that road fatalities are high in number. The pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns may have reduced them significantly.

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USA has started issuing data on all sorts of pandemic morbidity. Americans, like everyone else, spent more time at home, white collar workers rarely drove to offices. Less driving means fewer accidents and fewer deaths. The National Safety Council reports that in 2020 Americans drove 13% fewer miles as compared to 2019.

So far so good.

Counter-intuitively, fatalities on American roads increased by 8%. In other words, in the pandemic year, fatalities per mile went up by 24%. This is the biggest increase since 1924, when four-wheel brakes were not yet introduced.

California publishes great details about road crashes. In California, driven miles were down 13% as well. Even better, vehicle collisions were down by 24%. And yet, those fewer crashes were more deadly, causing 19% more deaths than in 2019. What were the reasons for such contradiction?

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Drivers in the USA reduced their use of seat belts. (Liberty. Freedom. No seat belts. No masks). Road patrol caught 5% more unfastened seat belts. In covid-19, alcohol consumption increased, binge drinking became popular. Drinks and drugs caused reckless driving, ignoring red lights. Statistics in California and Iowa show that the number of speeding tickets more than doubled. (Going over 100 miles an hour). On average, speeds in number of cities rose by 22%. Reduction in traffic congestion and slack law enforcement may have added to reckless driving. Combined, it contributed to greater force and fatal crashes.

In normal times, in rural America, roads are emptier, speeds higher, and accidents more serious. The pandemic reduced the gap between rural and urban. Urban drivers started treating cities like rural areas. Pandemic and lockdowns tempted the drivers to whizz faster than was good for them.

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President Biden said a lot of folks were reaching breaking point. Suicides were up, he said. It is no surprise that prolonged lockdowns, school closures, social isolation, job losses should result in a spike in suicides. Before the pandemic, suicides in the United States had increased every year, increased by 35% in the previous twenty years.

Again, logic and facts don’t match. On 31 March, the National Center for Health Statistics published statistics on the leading causes of deaths. In 2020, suicides decreased by 5% (from 47,511 in 2019 to 44,814 in 2020). It is inexplicable.

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The latest Economist talks of the record number of USA opioid deaths during the pandemic. Earlier if an addict could take drugs along with friends, now he started taking them alone. And in case of an overdose, there was nobody around to call for help or administer naloxone, an antidote medicine against opioid overdose.

Some of the overdose cases might have been suicide attempts. Experts say suicides and overdose deaths should be considered together. The American data has a category called “unintentional injuries”. Drug overdose deaths are included here. This category rose by more than 10%. Deaths from Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids rose 52% year-on-year till August. Those drugs killed 52,000 Americans, cocaine 16,000 and heroin 4,000. While the pandemic is on, few people are watching these figures.

When the final tally is published for 2020, that year will be the deadliest year in America’s opioid epidemic. And there is no talk about a vaccine for it.

Ravi