Is COVID responsible for the increased incidence of violence in the United States? Recent small-scale studies have shown that many of the infected suffer cognitive declines that may continue or become worse as their lives continue. My question to the reader is, could the cognitive decline of those infected with SARS-COV2-19 lead to increased aggressive behavior leading to mass shootings, aggressive actions of aircraft passengers, and even micro-aggressions such as rude behavior on commercial aircraft?
There is a historical precedent for the hypothesis, environmental lead pollution. Laws mandated the reduction of lead in the environment from all sources including the removal of leaded gasoline from consumer markets. In 1995 leaded gasoline was prohibited from use in cars and trucks, but still allowed for use in aircraft engines. The use of lead in various products throughout history has also come with various warnings. The ancient Greeks warned that exposure to lead would eventually cause the mind to “give way”. One of the first governmental agencies to ban lead products that contributed to environmental exposure to humans was the great state of California. Within a decade of limiting those types of lead products in California, there was a significant drop in violent crimes. As other states adopted similar measures, they also experienced drops in violent crimes.
Currently, we do not know the total number of SARS-COV2-19 infected in the U.S. for several reasons
- 20% to 35% of those infected showed no symptoms, helping to spread the infections. Yet when detected by PCR, the asymptomatic infected showed similar damage to lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, and brain as those with more severe symptoms. Most of us now know that the infected with more severe symptoms had a cascade of inflammatory responses known as a cytokine storm.
- Only about 15% of infected required medical intervention due to the previously mentioned cytokine storm and were obviously tested and properly classified.
- The reported deaths of 595,239 deaths due to COVID-19 may be under-reported due to misclassification, failure to test, or outright manipulation of data by governmental agencies by as much as 66%. Excess deaths from the CDC death certificate database indicated that in excess of 900,000 deaths may be attributable to COVID-19.
The CDC estimated total SARS-COV2-19 infections is 83 million, compared to the confirmed cases of 32,922,798, this is a stunning 250% more cases. The 2020 census pegs the population of the U.S. at 331,002,651. This means that 25% of the population may be compromised in some way and this virus is not done with us yet.
I am deeply concerned about the mounting level of violence that is occurring now. It is something that must be investigated. It could also explain some, not all, of the crazy conspiracy theories being adopted. Could the corresponding drop in critical thinking skills, especially on the right, be related to the infected? We are witnessing a broad divergence between the vaccinated and the soon to be infected unvaccinated due to the politization of health mitigation efforts in this country. Please, talk me down.