Living in West London during the lockdown imposed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak is a surreal experience. Normal existence, as we knew it less than two months ago, seems to have occurred in another life. Some of us older ones lived through the nervous uncertainties of the Cold War, and we all look with some trepidation at the looming challenges posed by climate change. But this is something completely different.
As a 58-year-old diabetic man, my vulnerability to this virus is greater. Like my son’s, who is asthmatic. None of us are among the 1.5 million most vulnerable identified by the UK government, but we are open enough to complications to have voluntarily gone into more or less complete isolation, along with the rest of the family around us. supports. Various in-laws and outlaws seem to be doing their best to tempt us out into the dangerous afterlife, but so far we’re holding our own.
Data readily available
I am not a virologist or an epidemiologist. I’m not even a statistician. But I have an O level in Mathematics. And while this accomplishment may be modest in the larger scheme of academia, it’s enough to allow me to identify trends and draw insights from data that are readily available to anyone with an Internet connection and a working knowledge of Google. That is why I shudder at the obvious bewilderment of many of those commentators who pass for experts.
Throughout its handling of the crisis, my administration has wanted to emphasize that it is “following the science.” Political spokesmen are invariably accompanied during briefings by medical and scientific advisers with much order and esteem. And yet, what passes as the best scientific advice one day seems to be forgotten the next. Therefore, our initial reluctance to call off major sporting events was based on “scientific advice” which stated that there was no evidence that large crowds of people close together presented an ideal environment in which a virus could spread, only for it to be released. contrary advice just a little earlier. day or two later. Also pubs and restaurants. Even “following the science” has been offered as an explanation for shortcomings in the supply of protective equipment to frontline workers and in testing capacity. One could be forgiven for wondering if politics was being informed by science, or vice versa.
long tray
That was then. Today we are locked up and the discussion has turned to how we are going to get out of it. Inevitably, they do a lot of nervous navel-gazing when he realizes the big and the good, political and scientific, that a dynamic market economy cannot be kept in suspended animation forever. So where does it all go from here?
If one wants to know what is likely to happen in the future, the past and indeed the present often serve as useful guides. And enough information can be found in the statistical data we have collected from the initial outbreak in Wuhan, through the pre-lockdown exponential increases in the number of infections and deaths and to the more welcome signs that have recently begun to emerge from Italy. and Spain, to give us an idea of where we are going.
First, the long plateau followed by a gradual decline in numbers reflects the less drastic approach taken by European democracies than that taken by China. When the crisis hits, there may be a price to pay for enjoying the benefits of a free and open society. In southern Europe, the descent from the “peak” of the outbreak is noticeably slower than the original ascent. Given that the UK lockdown was even less severe than that of Spain or Italy, the unfortunate fact is that we can expect our recovery from this first spike, when it comes, to be even more laborious.
the reproduction number
The basic reproduction number is the mathematical term used by epidemiologists to quantify the infection rate of any virus or disease. Experts have calculated that, when left unquestioned, the reproduction number (or R0) of Covid-19 is around 2.5. This means that each infected person, on average, will transmit the virus to 2.5 other people, causing exponential spread.
Lockdowns, public awareness campaigns, and social distancing measures aim to reduce the R0 below 1.0, thereby reducing over time and eventually stopping the spread of infection. To induce a decline in infections as fast as a 2.5-fold increase, the number would need to be reduced to 0.4 (or 1 divided by 2.5). A preliminary study by a team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has calculated that in the UK the current R0 for the virus is around 0.62, which, if accurate and sustained, would mean that the virus will decrease, albeit at a slower rate than its original acceleration.
There is also more good news. British-American-Israeli Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Michael Levitt, who runs a lab at Stanford University in California, points out that the R0 of a virus naturally reduces over time due to the tendency of people to move around inside the virus. finite social circles, increasingly restricting the number of new contacts you will find. Coupled with a deliberate social distancing strategy, this will further reduce the spread.
facelift restrictions
So far so good, if anything good can be said about a global pandemic that, at the time of writing, has already claimed the lives of more than a hundred thousand people. But the challenge now is how to lift restrictions and begin to resume anything approaching normal without the rate of infections rapidly rising again. Neither the necessities of the economy nor human nature will allow life to stop indefinitely.
One imagines, or at least hopes, that any significant relaxation of restrictions will inevitably follow a reduction in new infections to a much more manageable number than today. When it does happen, however, the goal should be to keep new infections below R1. Without achieving this, a second wave is inevitable.
The lesson that the initial spread of the virus taught us is sobering. Then the contagion was taking place in a city in a country far from home, and yet in just over a month it had erupted to engulf the entire planet. Now, with 240 separate nations battling the virus in varying stages of development, any action any country takes to prevent it from returning within its borders would have to be extraordinary.
learning from experience
On the other side of the coin, at least in this short space of time we have gained valuable knowledge and experience. Where Western countries, with the partial exception of Germany, were unable to test, track and trace the pathogen rigorously enough when it first descended on us, hopefully we will be better equipped to do so the second time. Mobile applications are already being developed to help us in this process, although it would be a denial of duty to allow our policy to depend solely on their use to the exclusion of other complementary strategies.
One imagines that the limited travel that is allowed to resume between nations will, at least for now, be subject to virus testing of passengers, including returning British citizens, at the point of departure or entry, or else to the implementation of a mandatory quarantine period for all travellers. Without such drastic action, it is hard to see how a contact tracing and tracking program can hope to succeed.
More than anything else, it will require global cooperation and coordination at all levels. A global pandemic can only be effectively addressed through joint global strategic action. Even a rogue nation that refuses to play by the rules will risk jeopardizing the efforts of all nations.
Antivirals and vaccines
Ultimately, we can only contain the threat as best we can until a vaccine arrives. However, before this happens, antiviral drugs, whether new or modified, may be game-changers by allowing the disease arising from the infection to be treated before it becomes serious or even fatal. Removing the grim unpredictability of the coronavirus will allow the world the luxury of enjoying something like a normal existence without too much fear.
The lifting of the lockdown should be seen as the first stage of the end game, not as a poorly planned panic move driven by the needs of the economy. Handled correctly, it offers a second chance to rectify the mistakes that allowed the virus to break out in the first place. Being caught sleeping the first time was clumsy, doing it again would be absolutely inexcusable.
