This 'Seat Belt' Will Help Decrease Your Risk of Suffering From COVID-19
Editor's note: This time last year, no one had heard about COVID-19...
The virus didn't start spreading in China until December 2019. Now, just nine months later, it has reportedly infected more than 26 million people worldwide – including more than 6 million here in the U.S. And it has caused more than 869,000 deaths globally.
Many folks are focusing on the race for a vaccine. But no one knows for sure when one will be widely available. So instead of worrying about something you can't control, it's beneficial to instead focus on lowering your risk of infection – and furthermore, your risk of dying.
This weekend's Masters Series features a pair of essays that are adapted from the June issue of Stansberry Venture Technology. In these essays, editor Dave Lashmet details a risk factor for COVID-19 that most folks are ignoring and explains who's most in danger today...
This 'Seat Belt' Will Help Decrease Your Risk of Suffering From COVID-19
On September 17, 1908, Thomas Selfridge had a fateful flight...
Tom was one of the first three U.S. military pilots. He started his career flying inside a kite designed by Alexander Graham Bell.
Later, Tom designed one of the first experimental, heavier-than-air aircraft – the Red Wing. He was also the first U.S. military pilot to fly solo – in the White Wing aircraft.
In 1908, officials handpicked Tom to fly over the Missouri State Fair in a rigid balloon. But he thought the future was in heavier-than-air aircraft. So he gave up his blimp seat to test-fly a Wright Model A Flyer with Orville Wright as the pilot.
After four circuits at 150 feet, the plane's right-side propeller blew apart... and the shrapnel started snapping the wires that held the biplane together.
Orville later said Tom was the picture of bravery as the Wright Flyer tore itself apart. But as the plane pitched toward the ground, Tom quietly exclaimed, "Oh! Oh!" These were his last words.
As the plane crash-landed, Tom slid through the crumbling craft and hit his head on a spar. Here's how a 1908 Italian newspaper illustrated the crash...
Tom was pulled from the wreckage and rushed to the hospital for emergency brain surgery... but he never woke up. Orville had a lifelong limp after weeks in the hospital.
Tom was the first U.S. military air casualty. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and there's a stone marker for him at West Point. A U.S. air base in Michigan is named after him.
Tom's tragedy drove demand for common-sense safety features in all the aircraft that followed... It led to the creation of seat belts in aircraft, and then in cars to follow.
Granted, seat belts can't prevent tragedies. But they can limit them...
They're a reasonable precaution for reducing risks if an accident occurs. For example, we wear seat belts on planes today in case of sudden turbulence.
Nowadays, we're looking at cutting physical risks... but not in planes. We're looking at cutting risks from COVID-19.
So far, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to roughly 6 million U.S. infections, with a 2.5% case fatality rate. The contagion reaches across friends and family, spreading at an alarming pace.
But the good news is, you can take one precaution to protect yourself from the risks of COVID-19. It's like a seat belt against hospitalization and death from this virus. This goes well beyond masks and social distancing...
Instead, it's a chance to cut your physical risk – not of infection itself, but of the severity of the disease if you get sick. And as I'll share today and tomorrow, it's something investors should be paying attention to right now.
This story comes down to one risk factor you might not have heard much about...
Most of us know by now that COVID-19 targets older people.
For folks younger than 20, we expect there will be around 200 deaths in the U.S. this year. That's roughly the same death toll as the flu. But this only holds true for the 82 million Americans younger than 20.
For everyone else, COVID-19 is at least 50 times more deadly than the flu.
A few months ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") summarized the first 1.3 million U.S. cases of COVID-19. Of those cases, 72,000 people died.
For 40-year-olds, the CDC found a 1% risk of death from COVID-19. For 50-year-olds, the risk is 2%. For 60-year-olds, it's 7%. For 70-year-olds, it's 17%. And for the 80-plus bracket, there's a 32% risk of death.
It's easy to see that the older you are, the more at risk you are. But to make it through this crisis, we need to get a handle on the other risk factors as well.
So far, less than 2% of the U.S. population has gotten COVID-19... and nearly 187,000 people are dead.
But potentially – without public health measures like wearing masks – there could be 12 million more COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. That's the kind of tragedy we could still see in Brazil, India, and Russia.
This is the course we were on before the U.S. lockdowns. When the pandemic first took hold in the U.S., cases were growing 33% per day. That means a three-day doubling time.
So after 30 days with no public health measures, there could be 1,000 cases... and after 60 days, there could be 1 million cases. At 90 days, it would be 1 billion cases... That's more than three times the U.S. population.
Besides leveling the country, it would cripple our ability to treat anyone medically. We wouldn't have any available hospital beds, any intensive care units, or any respirators... whether you had COVID-19 or were in a car crash.
Shutting down the economy was a last-ditch effort to stop the spread of the virus and preserve our medical safety net. But now that states are reopening, we all need to take precautions to stay safe.
By the simplest metric, we now know that COVID-19 can be transmitted as an aerosol – which means it moves like cigarette smoke. This should make it clear that one way to protect yourself is by filtering the air you breathe with masks.
Masks substantially lower your risk of infection by filtering what you inhale and what you exhale. The simplest mask – like a bandanna – might only help protect other people... but it still reduces community spread, which means it reduces everyone's risk.
Don't get me wrong – everyone hates wearing masks. But everyone hates seat belts, too. So why do we wear them? Because it's a precaution against a much more severe tragedy.
Another precaution you can take against COVID-19 – one that hasn't gotten as much attention – is weight loss...
This doesn't reduce your risk of infection like masks can. Instead, it reduces the impact of the disease if you do get infected.
You see, like age, obesity puts you at greater risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. The only other clear risk factor is chronic lung disease – which happens in half of all smokers.
According to the CDC, having one of these two conditions increases your risk of hospitalization and your risk of death from COVID-19 by a factor of 4.
This 400% increased risk is for folks between the ages of 40 and 69. In other words, risk is not just tied to your age... It's also tied to your lifestyle. So the sooner you can reverse unhealthy living, the better it is for you.
There are 34 million U.S. adult smokers – or 14% of American adults. It's clear that stopping smoking will reduce your risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19. Six studies that reviewed smoking and COVID-19 all concluded that people should quit.
Obesity is more insidious than smoking because it's less obvious and more common.
The CDC reports 40% of American adults are obese. That's about 100 million people. Roughly a quarter of them have a body mass index over 35. That's 25 million folks.
Tomorrow, I'll explain why obesity can increase the risk of complications from COVID-19. And I'll share why investors should be paying attention.
Good investing,
Dave Lashmet
Editor's note: It's clear that the obesity epidemic is spiraling out of control across the U.S. today... Obesity cases have doubled in some states over the past decade alone.
Fortunately, the first drugs are emerging to stop this dangerous condition in its tracks. The most powerful of all these drugs is made by one small company. And Dave believes this discovery could drive the company's stock up 2,000% in the years ahead. Learn more here.