Cloudy With A Chance Of Crazy
My Effort To Make Sense Of The COVID Numbers Game
Bear with me as I paint a mental picture for you. We’re going to go on a little food safety journey. If you’re a chicken farmer, one of your biggest concerns is Salmonella. It is a pathogenic bacteria that naturally thrives in poultry products. At one point it was reported that nearly 20% of all chickens were infected with Salmonella. If a person eats a piece of chicken infected with Salmonella they can become ill with severe diarrhea, vomiting, and even death in extreme cases. Nasty stuff for sure. Fortunately if a consumer cooks the chicken to an internal temperature of at least 165°F the chance of getting ill dramatically reduces because the bacteria dies off at those high temperatures. Brilliant!
This is kind of a “duh” fact because even if you don’t fully understand the science behind it, I can bet that you still cook your chicken until it is fully cooked and I highly doubt you are ever rushing to your favorite restaurant to order a nice roll of chicken sushi. In fact, if the chicken ever came to your table with even a tad bit of pink in the middle, you would send it back wouldn’t you? It’s not worth the risk to be stuck at home for days with explosive diarrhea. I dare say that the vast majority of us are grossed out about the thought of eating undercooked or raw chicken.
Chicken producers also try to keep us safe by testing their birds for Salmonella and other pathogens. Each day they take samples and test them to see if the percentage of Salmonella levels in their product is higher or lower than acceptable limits. If it’s lower, it’s time to clock out early, put your feet up, and binge watch Schitt’s Creek. If it’s higher, all of the alarms start going off and it’s time to get to work quickly. Recalls happen, product is reprocessed, and the facilities get cleaned from top to bottom with sanitizers and cleansers.
Now imagine for a second that chicken processors were required to put their percentage of birds that tested positive for Salmonella on every package that got put on the shelf. Would that influence which company you bought from? Let’s say I’m comparing chicken breasts between Company A and Company B. Company A packaging shows they have a positive rate of 60% while Company B shows they have a positive rate of 10%. Price is the same, meat quality and taste is the same; I can guarantee you I am buying from Company B. My risk of getting an infected bird is lower and therefore the risk of me getting ill is decreased. Easy!
Now let’s say Company A is a large, multi-national corporation that churns out nearly 5 million chickens each day while the other is a local farm that processes about 500 chickens per day. Does that change your perception of which one is more safe? What if Company A put a little disclaimer underneath the 60% label that said,
“Don’t worry! Yes, our percentage is higher than every one else, but that’s because we test like millions more chickens than small, local farmers. In fact, everyone should be thanking us for our amazing example of testing billions of birds.”
Do you feel better now? Are you buying from Company A now? If 100% of the chickens in each company are tested, you would still be more cautious about eating the product from Company A wouldn’t you? And that’s simply because a 60% positive rate is significantly more risky than a 10% positive rate regardless of the population size. I am plucking one package off of the shelf and I have a 3 out of 5 chance of getting one with Salmonella with Company A or a 1 out of 10 chance of getting one with Salmonella with Company B.
I realize this is a bit of a roundabout way to think, but this is exactly how I am processing this onslaught of comments rolling around right now during our global COVID-19 pandemic. Think of the testing being done by the chicken processors as testing being done by labs and clinics for COVID. Ultimately, it’s all about that percentages, NOT the total numbers. If each country was able to test 100% of its citizens, the number we would care about is the percent change in positive tests, not which country has a greater number of positive tests.
Think of the act of cooking the chicken to a safe temperature as wearing a mask while in public right now. Cooking the chicken is 100% in the hands of the consumer. Once the chicken leaves the farm, they no longer can control the safety of the product even if there are federal and state regulations in place. If I happen to get a batch of chicken that is contaminated with a few colonies of Salmonella, but I cook it to the right temps, my risk of getting ill drops SIGNIFICANTLY. But what if I say to myself, “you know what? Only 20% of chickens have Salmonella, that’s not that bad. Henceforth, I will only eat chicken raw!” That sounds idiotic right? I am the one who has to decide if I am going to eat only cooked or raw chicken. Wearing a mask in public right now is 100% up to you. Scientifically speaking, your risk of getting ill will significantly decrease if you are wearing a mask whenever you are surrounded by a contagious disease that spreads through coughing and sneezing. This has always been true.
Salmonella doesn’t care if you are 2 years old or 100 years old. It doesn’t care if you voted Republican or Democrat or didn’t vote at all. It doesn’t care if you are happy right now or angry, whether you have a college degree or not, or where you were born in this world. It is a brainless and emotionless bacteria that survives by finding food sources, reproducing quickly, and adapting to environmental threats. COVID-19 is a virus. It could care less if you prefer boxers to briefs or if you use Twitter over Facebook. It’s job on this planet is to attach itself to other cells, pump them full of its DNA, and reproduce to survive.
Always cook your chicken! Wear the stupid mask for now. It’s not going to be for forever. We’ll get through all of this. But remember, with chickens and COVID, it’s all about reducing risk. It’s not a numbers game but it is a percentage game. 100% of flaming bags on your porch are still filled with dog poo no matter if there are 700 porches in your city or only 3. Be safe out there.
