Following on from my two previous articles on Coronavirus it’s time to take stock of where we are at present. The government has moved from ‘containment’ to ‘delay’ much quicker than I would have expected them to do if the main source of infections was coming from outside the UK via travellers from infected areas. This jump to ‘delay’ so swiftly does suggest that the virus is now being transmitted communally and at a significant level.

The number of infections, currently standing at nearly 600 but which I expect to rise to more than 1000 early next week or sooner, does give the impression that this virus may have been circulating for a while in Britain, maybe even before there was an international fuss about it. It could be the case that this disease has been passing around unnoticed in the UK because most of those who contract it will only suffer minor illness that could quite easily be confused with a cold or a flu. Many of us could have already had Covid19, recovered from it and be none the wiser, it’s that sort of disease. My wife and I both contracted bad colds on our last but one trip to London in early February where we traveled on the Underground, a transport system that is to be quite frank like a giant human filled Petri dish and it’s not beyond the bounds of probability that we’ve already contracted Covid19 but recovered from it. It’s possible that many others might have contracted the disease and got over it and moved on.

The death toll in the UK has been remarkably low so far with only ten deaths attributed to the virus although this may change as more people in those groups who are medically compromised contract the virus, and it is in those who have existing medical problems who are the most at risk of serious complications from Covid19. There is also the possibility that people could have died from Covid19 in the UK prior to the outbreak in China being publicised with their deaths being attributed to other causes. If a medical professional or a coroner is not aware of a particular possible cause of death then the death may be classed as pneumonia or influenza or multiple organ failure.

There’s some big questions to be asked about how different countries are treating both the virus itself and those who have contracted the virus. Why for example have South Korea and Italy, two countries with relatively advanced medical systems, had such markedly different death rates? Is it for example a demographic or cultural issue with more people who are vulnerable to the disease in Italy becoming victim to it . South Korea on the other hand which has had a lot of infections are now starting to see their Covid19 figures going down? Is there something in South Korean society that has caused South Korea to not be as afflicted as Italy? Or is it differences in treatment regimen? The Medcram site which I’m using as my go to source for Covid 19 stuff as it’s balanced, scientific and calm, is speculating that the South Koreans may be using an existing drug as a method of carrying Zinc into a cell and thereby disrupting the RNA of the virus when it attempts to replicate.

One thing I have noticed is that national borders seem to be coming back in fashion again everywhere apart from the EU where Brussels is clinging onto cross border freedom of movement. This clinging to freedom of movement by the EU is possibly because it is such a talisman of European integration that to abandon it gives political ammunition to those who want harder borders between nations? President Trump has sealed the US border to anyone from within the Schengen Agreement zone in Europe but has not included the United Kingdom in this restriction because the UK has never been a part of that borderless area. However, I suspect that the USA will soon restrict travel from the UK a decision that could be made more likely if the number of infections and deaths climb to worrying levels. I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that borders on countries do not just provide demarcation lines within which a people or a nation can govern their affairs to their own satisfaction, but borders also act as a barrier to disease, because by controlling who enters a nation a nation also controls the diseases that the entrant may be carrying. Stop the people and you stop the disease is what some are now saying and Covid 19 has sharply thrown into the public eye some of the problems with open border zones such as Schengen. With Schengen there’s nothing to stop a sneezing German infecting a Belgian, a Pole, a Frenchman or a Spaniard. Comparisons are being made online by various people between the EU and Russia which claims (claims that I’ve not yet verified) that the allegedly low Covid19 rate in Russia is due to that country closing its borders early and the EU which did not.

The UK Government is still being pretty measured in its rhetoric on the subject of Covid19 and are leaving most of the heavy lifting with regards public information to Government medical officers. This is probably a wise thing for the government to do as the reputation of politicians and the trust in them has fallen to an all time low in Britain in part due to the issue of Brexit. I do get the impression that the government expects the Covid19 virus to spread and more people to become either mildly or seriously ill from it and are priming the public for this situation to occur.

Ultimately there are only two ways to beat this virus, the first is to just let the disease spread until herd immunity is achieved against Covid19. It’s difficult to say at what level of infection herd immunity could be said to be achieved. Diseases differ depending on their ease of transmission. For example I’ve read that some infections require 95% of people to be immune to avoid spreading whilst others that are les transmissible require much lower levels of immunity to stop disease spread. If Covid19 is as transmissible as Measles or influenza then an awful lot of people are going to have to contract it in order to be immune and that also raises the number of people who could have complications from it.

Creating herd immunity by infection is a bit of a sledgehammer way of dealing with a problem, it will cause casualties and the creation of casualties may also cause social problems that may also cause a burden to government in addition to the disease itself. The best way out of this Covid19 mess would be for a vaccine to be produced and we are lucky that new techniques of vaccination, such as RNA vaccination, that have not yet properly come to market but which have been studied in various nations, could be pressed into service to tackle Covid19. We might be lucky, Covid19 may just run out of potential victims and cease to be transmitted or it might become a seasonal and endemic illness which most people survive. But we cannot completely rely on luck anymore than the apothecaries of London could rely on their ineffective potions to control the 1665 outbreak of Bubonic Plague. What is needed is a vaccine and we are damned lucky that we live today where there is much more knowledge available about viruses than was available to those fighting the 1918 flu pandemic. We at least have a scientific chance to beat Covid19 those in the past fighting Plague and influenza had by comparison no such chance.