There was a good programme on Radio 4 yesterday "Inside science" explaining the origins of the virus and it's spread:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000g3gf
Crates of live animals one on top of another in Chinese wet markets, bringing together animals and humans that don't usually come into contact with each other, provides an excellent mixing ground for viruses to mutate and hop species. It's happened before with a number of other viruses such as SARS but that one died out before efforts to develop a vaccine were needed.
COVAD-19 seems to spread better due to its mobility and the incubation period hiding the evidence. It's also more deadly in the final stages than flu mainly affecting the weak and elderly but less so in the young. A vaccine is unlikely to be ready for a year or more.
We seem to be getting mixed messages on what to do from some very good experts but tied to political motivations a well as dubious reasoning.
We had Johnson at a press conference saying he shook hands with everybody at a hospital treating COVID-19 patients the other day and sounding rather dangerous and bumbling whilst his exasperated expert sat next to him advised "wash your hands" and we have Trump spouting nonsense ranging from fake news to - him saying doctors have told him he has so much natural insight about viruses he wonders why he ran for president!
We also have some very good reporting but there are some far reaching and significant effects to come out of this.
By Monday Italy was in total lockdown - the whole country of 60 million people, with a ban on public assembly, schools, universities and cinemas closed, everyone ordered to stay at home and curfew after 6pm enforced by police and army. Their hospitals are at the point of collapse because they don't have enough intensive care beds.
Meanwhile in the UK we are avoiding taking such measures but the government is now asking us to self isolate if we have any even mild symptoms of sore throat or cough.
The big difference with the UK is that we run our hospitals at 95% to 100% capacity after ten years of bed cuts and efficiency drives. Most other EU countries run their hospitals at 80% capacity which is why we have frequent blockages with patients held in corridors and waiting in ambulances delaying call out response .... and they don't.
The danger is that if the same thing happens here the death toll will rise quicker because we don't have the intensive care beds to look after mainly the elderly - which the virus affects more.
We also have a significantly higher percentage of population over 65 - around 20+% in Europe compared to around half the proportion in China with a younger population used to following government orders to take effective measures - they are at the point of turning things around there but we have a long way to go.
On Monday Italy had more than 9,100 confirmed infections, and more than 460 people had died.
In the UK, there were then 319 confirmed cases of Covid-19 on the Monday, a rise of 46 since the same time the previous day on Sunday.
The government are seen as acting too slow to take precautions, notably commented on by Jeremy Hunt the former Health secretary, meanwhile our infections are doubling every four days which by my calculation would put us on a par with Italy in less than 20 days on from the start of the week - and unable to cope sooner because of our overstretched NHS.
We also have lots of people on zero hours contracts and self employed who can't afford to take time off work - a system encouraged by the government. They won't get sick pay so will tend to struggle on infecting others rather than self isolate. The budget saw a measure to allow them to immediately claim benefit but I haven't heard of a measure to remove the five week wait for Universal Credit - so who would take that option?
The UK seem to be holding back on the more stringent measures other countries are taking. The epidemiologists are modeling the spread of the virus from the data gathered from a well run testing programme but the holding back of known to be effective action seems to be motivated by concerns over the prediction of public behaviour - not wanting either to cause panic or have people ignore instructions because the problem doesn't seem serious enough yet - rather than head off the problem effectively like they have done in Hong Kong and Singapore (see the graph at the top).
We've already had some reports of people fighting over toilet rolls in supermarkets and certainly my local Tesco was unbelievably out of all toilet rolls and pasta so you can see some reason for managing messages.
But perhaps they should explain things better rather than presume we won't understand leading to panic.
Meanwhile in the USA the situation is worse with a severe lack of available testing kits - one state of 10 million people with only a few hundred kits available for example. Kits are only available to those with health insurance and if you claim you have to pay the insurance excess first. Those without insurance would have to pay a huge cost even if they could get one. Many migrants fear going to hospital for fear of being deported. There is no Central command of healthcare. Hospitals are responsible to their shareholders and their response uncoordinated. The extent of the spread in the USA is very unclear but the dead will be easier to count.
Trump is more concerned about his re-election prospects from the effect on stock markets and had been trying to talk down the problem claiming the virus was a hoax initially but whilst he's more used to attacking his rivals on Twitter the virus doesn't have a Twitter account (as John Sopel so aptly put it) and carries on regardless.
Trump has now resorted to blaming others for the inevitable disaster and tried to blame the EU and banned air travel from there but not the UK - a politically motivated decision without justification and which is now having the opposite effect by spooking the markets with a huge blow to the aviation industry from which it might not recover.
As if to add to the contradiction the wife of the Canadian Prime Minister has tested positive after a visit to London.
Here if the government don't act with stronger measures soon or perhaps even if they do we'll possibly still end up in crusis and if we fare worse than other countries the government will likely get the blame for its management of the virus and policies over the last 10 years which have left us with an underfunded, understaffed and overloaded health service.
We've got another crisis to look forward to when the Brexit transition period ends on December 31st - if Johnson goes for no deal WTO we'll have more than toilet roll shortages to worry about. Will he try to blame the Brexit chaos on COVID-19? It would seem madness to walk into yet another crisis.
