No Silver Bullet for Coronavirus, ‘No evidence’ people who have survived Covid-19 have immunity from re-infection, according to World Health Organisation, we are all living in the darkest of times, a viable vaccine may not come as early as people hope, public told lockdown will last another 3 weeks, but we should brace ourselves for being locked down much longer, one thing is certain, society needs to demand better from our political class

Dear All

It has been awhile since I blogged, like many I am stuck at home, I am climbing the walls wondering if the bad news from the coronavirus will ever end. Today’s post is courtesy of my brother loaning me a device to access the internet. Each day, we see the stats coming in, hundreds of people right across the age range are dead, many more are infected and the brightest story are from people who in the midst of this hell are doing their bit. People like Captain Tom Moore who has become a symbol of hope for funding raising millions of pounds for the NHS at such an elderly age. While people like Sam Smith, the musician tell of the ‘hell’ of living in a big mansion and being bored, contrast this with Captain Tom Moore, who applied himself and whose idea of helping the NHS uplifted the nation.

Captain Tom Moore is a hero, and there are many more heroes fighting this virus, the ones in hospital frontlines, and also others on the front lines at Care Homes. They are up for the fight; they just want the protection of PPE equipment to do their jobs. Staffs at Care Homes have left their own homes to move into Care Homes to save their clients by limiting contact with the outside world. They are giving up their family life to protect people from other families, a rather selfless act in these desperate times.  

Many elderly people in Care Homes are sadly not going to make it, many NHS staff and patients are sadly not going to make it. How bad is it, even University Medical students are graduating early before their course ends, ‘straight out of uni and straight into the trenches’. This must tell you something about how serious things have gotten, it is an un-usual step to say the least regarding early graduation.

In many ways, I think people are being to wonder if we are getting the extent of how truly bad this pandemic actually is. We get stats ever day, the infected, the dead; the number in ICU, but we don’t have the stat of how much of the population is infected, how these people are moving amongst us and their patterns of movement. Although talk of an exit strategy is a news item by press and politicians, we shouldn’t get our hopes raised up, because this is the first wave of the pandemic. When Spanish Flu hit the world about 100 years ago, the first wave killed many, the second wave killed many more people. I saw an interesting documentary about Spanish Flu and how it was transported in troop ships which when it docked in Europe spread through the armies fighting in World War One.

At present, we are told many people right across the world are working flat out on a cure, a vaccine which will save us all. In the meantime, there is no evidence to suggest people who have recovered from coronavirus then have immunity; this is according to the World Health Organisation. Senior epidemiologists at the WHO have warned that there is no proof those who have been infected cannot be infected again, which if there was piece of news that you wouldn’t want to hear, this is it. We hear that Coronavirus vaccine trials are about to start, which means hundreds of people have to volunteer to be human guinea pigs, medical trials regardless are always a step into the unknown which carry risk. Risk the vaccine doesn’t work, and risk the vaccine doesn’t cause other problems which circulating in the human body. In the news, we read that a vaccine could be finished by mid-August. Many organisations are working on their version of a vaccine and others are working to see if current drugs can fight of coronavirus.

We live in hope.

The UK Government has been criticised for its approach to the virus, but when you look at everyone else in Europe and the rest of the world, this virus has left many countries flat footed. No matter who controls a government, Putin in Russia, Trump in America, Macron in France or Johnson in the UK, no one will be getting a pat on the back and a hearty handshake of well done.

Too many people will have died, and a celebration will look rather out of place.

People can talk about how we will all be wearing facemasks in the future, how testing is the great panacea, about how much is spent on testing kits, such as serology tests, which measure levels of antibodies in blood plasma. But tested and not infected today, might not mean not infected further down the line. Certain groups seem to be getting hard hit by the virus such as the BAME, is it genetic factors or social factors which are the cause, or a combination of both, we don’t know. Why is it some people get a slight flu and others get a crushing health crisis which results in death?

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, Dr Maria van Kerkhove said:

“There are a lot of countries that are suggesting using rapid diagnostic serological tests to be able to capture what they think will be a measure of immunity. Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serological test can show that an individual has immunity or is protected from re-infection.”

She added:

“These antibody tests will be able to measure that level of seroprevalence – that level of antibodies but that does not mean that somebody with antibodies means that they are immune.”

To achieve herd immunity, it means people have to get infected and then live, the downside side of the policy is death, Herd immunity has been talked about right from the start of the pandemic, but what needs to be talked about is the planning for how to deal with this type of crisis. Basically everyone is making it up as they go along, because everyone was caught unprepared and sadly a touch too slow to act. Shutting down a country isn’t an easy decision because it is very complicated not just in terms of health but also in terms of economics. We weren’t ready but then no one was, this is something which countries must come together to recognise, viruses recognise no borders.

We know that the lockdown is said to be three more weeks, but I suspect that the ‘three more weeks’ mentality is to give people a mental cushion. I would say if we still have hundreds dead each day, we can expect no change approaching a similar timeline of China who locked down Wuhan for nearly three months. Given we have done circa three weeks so far, we should realise that we are fighting a war, this period of fighting is deep war, defeat fought off but no victory insight, a time of grim forbearance.

In day to day life, the people who get paid not a lot who are not keeping our society going have come to the fore; they will get the recognition now that they should have gotten before. No one who has worked on the frontline of this crisis and sadly lost their lives should be forgotten. I would like to see all their names on a wall of remembrance, we really are fighting a war here; many more heroes will emerge and get recognition, and hopefully come through this. One thing is certain, we were unprepared, we were too slow to act, and we were too slow to ensure that as a country that our logistics supply lines and supplies were in place. The UK Government will have an inquiry into all that has happened, and the outcome must be the need to create more robust plans for acting sooner.

Finally, everyone got caught out, and everyone got caught out everywhere, which is why any celebration post coronavirus will feel rather hollow! One plan which is needed at the end of the ‘war’ is a UK ‘Marshall Plan’. If you know your history this was all about rebuilding post war Europe, but this time round, we need to do it for a post (coronavirus) war UK. The road back to normal is going to take a long time for those of us who survive and live through this. So far in the UK, 15,464 deaths recorded but that number is already being questioned as low due to lack of testing. We are living through the most trying of times and we can't afford to be careless about not following the rules or we may be added to that figure.   

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University