So Mr Johnson has Covid 19 as has Matt Hancock and goodness knows who else in parliament. One wonders if his boast of “I’m still shaking hands was a good idea?” It will not be for all those whose hands he shook, especially if they get very ill or die. His attitude seems to be one of get it early and get it over. Fine providing you don’t die, but for many this feels reckless, that inviting the virus is inviting more deaths, both in the short run and the long run. Certainly there will be an early spike, then the benefits of hoped for herd immunity. But testing, social distancing, isolation, these things work, China and South Korea show this. They will have less cases, except for those travellers who are now bringing the virus afresh. There may be less deaths in these countries in the long run. I understand about flattening the curve, giving our health service a fighting chance, but it appears that the effects of Johnson’s actions and words are the polar opposite to this, inviting a huge spike , which could be uncontrollable. Health professionals making decisions about who lives or dies, when this could have been ameliorated. I say these things as if I am certain, I am not, who knows what will happen. Maybe Mr Johnson is right. One thing though won’t go away, it nags, it’s that feeling that he is doing this not to save the most lives, but to enable the economy to recover quicker and so save more lives of those people who might have died of non Covid related illnesses. Of course, we all want this, but at the cost of more lives lost to the virus now, and how many lives? Johnson is gambling, and this is a very high stakes gamble, he is in the hot seat, an unenviable position, let’s hope he has got it right.
Nineteen The Covid Diaries – Get it Early and Get it Over
Previous articleNineteen the Covid Diaries - RipplesNext article Nineteen The Covid Diaries - Joe Wick
1 comment
Comments are closed.
First let me say I have never been a Boris supporter. Let me try and paint a big picture of how I think this is all playing out. I think Johnson has been saying that he is guided by the science and his health advisers are saying that its a strategic and timing crisis. i.e. the NHS should be able to manage the massive impact on demand for their services if the nation follows the 4 stage strategy that is being implemented. We are up to stage 3 now which is to flatten and push into the future the infection by reducing the spread by everyone staying home and not spreading the virus.
This is a classic managerial and scientific approach to problem solving. It is not as laissez faire and non interventionist as Trump, where even now the big T has just announced some trillions of dollars being pumped into the economy and let the poor sods in New York City sort the plague problem out for themselves. To be fair, Boris has announced significant state support for both employees and the self employed (labour) and grants and loans for businesses (capital) and whatever it takes to provide the NHS with whatever resources it needs to tackle this problem. But lets face it this is emergency planning – 4000 beds at the excel centre in London and 5000 in another exhibition centre in Cardiff and in Birmingham, being implemented by military planners. And this needs to be dealt with at an international scale and no one knows what will be the best way of dealing with it. What will happen when it hits Africa where there is little or no infrastructure or equipment to deal with the problem in most nations? If we had an authoritarian state we could do a Wuhan with massive lock down enforced by the military and the police. But we are not.
So I think going forward, the government is monitoring the effectiveness of its 4 stage strategy and seeing whether our partial lock down will have the right effect of flattening and pushing forward the curve. They also don’t know how long, having had CV19 that the population’s immunity will last – only 8 days or 2 years? So the scope for reinfection and a number of peaks of infection lasting years could be in prospect. Basically even the Virologists dont know how this virus works and how humans respond to it. I reckon I might have had a very mild version of CV19, with runny nose and red eye and slight shortness of breath – but barely noticeable. But I will never know for sure because there are no testing kits for Joe public only for health workers so that they can go back to work as quickly as possible, if they are self isolating and if they test negative.
Don’t forget that 80% of people who get it will have mild or no symptoms – they are asymptomatic – so the scope for passing it on is enormous unless people stay home.
Rachel’s boyfriend Tristan on the other hand has been on oxygen as he can’t breathe without it; in a covid ward and even though he was released from hospital because they needed the bed space, he had to be readmitted today because the oxygen saturation levels in his lungs was too low. So, both at a macro level and at a personal level this is beginning to become very real.
So we can only hope that the Boris’ televised appearances as a politician invoking the battle of Britain approach ‘ we can beat this thing together’ gets the population on board. Whereas the really important people are the medical and health experts (who have devised the strategy) who are really calling the shots. Basically its not Boris who is in control… he is only a mouthpiece appealing to us to do the right things.
Anyway lets hope that even if our approach is apparently not as good as Germany – they had lockdown at an earlier stage than us and have fewer deaths and cases it is likely to be better than Italy or Spain.