Thursday 5 March 2020
Malta considers the public reaction to Covid-19 to be over-the-top (Kristina Paukshtite from Pexels)
As I talk with friends and colleagues, there seems to be an increasing view that the media, indeed the world, are becoming alarmist. Some say they are inciting worry and panic when we should be doing our best to stay relaxed. The Maltese have openly declared they consider the public reaction to be over-the-top, as there are more people dying from influenza than Covid-19.
Royal Berkshire Hospital, where the first British patient died of Covid-19
The Maltese may be right, or they may be wrong but, irrespective of their opinion, people are becoming increasingly worried. Events are unfolding so rapidly it is sometimes impossible to guess what might happen next. Only yesterday Italy was encouraging foreigners to visit. Today, its headlines show that it has closed its schools for ten days at least and the country’s death toll has reached 148. All its professional sport will be played behind closed doors for a month. Although most of their cases are in the north, 19 of the country’s 20 regions have been affected. There is a strong and longstanding Anglo-Italian link.
In UK we have had our first death, a woman in her seventies with co-existing disease, who died in a Reading hospital. She is said to have caught Covid-19 in the UK and not overseas. We now have a total of 116 cases in the country, with 30 new ones in the past 24 hours. The Government has said that it is preparing for what they call a “significant spread” of the disease. It is anyone’s guess what that might be although I have a fairly good idea. Mayhem, basically.
Iran is still in trouble, with 210 dead, and has closed its schools and universities until April. The country is saying that drivers are spreading the disease and is limiting the travel between cities. Their bigwigs have also said that the virus can be spread by paper bank notes, although whether that is a proven risk is something I do not know. There was one report two days ago that suggested the coronavirus can survive on the screen of a mobile telephone for at least a week and that we should be cleaning the screen twice daily as a consequence. Apparently, we each pick up our mobiles 2600 times every day – that is not a misprint – and use it 76 times. Disease or no disease, that is a horrifying statistic.
California has now declared an emergency after experiencing its first coronavirus death. The US death toll is now 11 and the country is entering overdrive with at least 150 cases in 16 states.
Flybe has just gone bust (Andreas Haas)
Stock markets around the world are struggling and companies are already going to the wall. Flybe, for example, has just entered administration and passengers are being told not to go to the airport and not to expect Flybe to take them anywhere. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced US$50 billion of emergency funding to help countries that are not so strong financially. My guess is that those companies that allow working from home will be in the best position. Some have already instructed their work force to do exactly that. Sony, Google and Twitter have each done this.
I worry that I am becoming complacent and need to be more on my guard. Only this evening I attended a meeting held by the Malta Tourism Authority at an all-ladies’ club called the Allbright in London’s Mayfair. I cannot explain why I went, especially as I am male, other than it was a good chance to meet other writing colleagues and to set up links for the future. In my mind I was pretending life was normal, when it clearly is not.
Immediately outside the club I unexpectedly came across a lifelong friend, and the godmother to one of my children. She was walking past, on her way to a dinner at a restaurant nearby, as I was about to open the Allbright’s front door. We were both equally surprised, instantly hugged without thinking, and milliseconds later both said simultaneously, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
Instantly we pulled apart and touched elbows. She was fine and I was fine, but the fact is that sometimes your guard slips and I am as much to blame as anyone.
It seems evident that the response to Covid-19 is different in various parts of the world. The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) held a media briefing today and said that he felt in some countries the level of political commitment currently did not match the level of the threat the world faced. One of his most telling statements was, “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans.”
As I become surrounded by increasing chaos, I feel there is very little I can do. It is simpler to ignore what is happening, which is manifestly what I should not be doing. While I try to stay relaxed, the boffins keep saying we should be concerned. With all that is going on, with the morbid tone of the newsreaders at every bulletin, and the alarming statements emanating from so many sources, it is difficult to control a sense of rising panic. Even as a doctor, it is easy to be dragged along by public opinion. One way of avoiding that is to pretend everything is overhyped and alarmist, when it is not. I simply do not know how best to react and sometimes find myself frozen to some imaginary spot.
Connor Reed, a 25-year-old teacher in Wuhan, was the first British man to contract Covid-19 in November 2019
If there is any doubt about how much of a problem surrounds us, and if the mortality from Covid-19 is higher than for influenza, despite the Maltese saying otherwise, the good news is there is still a better chance of surviving than dying from this new virus. Even so, it is not a disease I seek. I look no further than the description of having Covid-19 from the first UK citizen to acquire it. He was a 25-year-old expatriate from Llandudno in Wales, who caught Covid-19 in November 2019, when he was working as an English teacher in China’s Wuhan. He described symptoms akin to being “hit by a train.”
By day 11 he was feeling better but by day 12 his illness had returned with a vengeance. He took a taxi to the nearby Zhongnan University Hospital, where he saw a British doctor. Pneumonia was diagnosed and antibiotics were started. By day 24 his diary reads, “Hallelujah! I think I’m better. Who knew ‘flu could be as horrible as that, though?”
By day 52 he had received a notification from the hospital to say that he had been infected with the Wuhan coronavirus. He sounded a genuine, first-class individual who was caught up in something which, at the time, the world did not understand. Yet from his description, this is not an illness I want, and would certainly not wish it on those around me. What is more, his dates do not fit what we are presently being told. If he did have Covid-19 in November 2019, then the bug has been around for much longer that the world thinks. There is more to emerge, I am sure.
There is talk, too, in the media as to whether the NHS might collapse under the strain. At the moment there are 30 hospitals on standby to take patients. Presently, most of the patients are being treated at the Royal Free and St Thomas’s Hospitals in London, and in Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle. The Government keeps reassuring us that the NHS is first class and fully prepared. No one is admitting that, faced with a full-on pandemic, as yet undeclared by WHO, the healthcare system is at risk of collapsing. Can you imagine the outcry if the Government even whispered that coping might be a problem?
The headlines would worry anyone and certainly worry me. Try some of these from the BBC:
Coronavirus: Keep it simple, stick to facts – how parents should tell kids
Coronavirus information: How to stay safe
Coronavirus: How close are we to a vaccine?
Coronavirus: retailers warned not to ‘exploit’ consumers’ fears
Almost wherever I look, whatever I read, and from sources throughout the world, Covid-19 is the only headline. Try being relaxed and proportionate when disease and death are all that surround you.
People are still panic buying (Photo by Yaroslav Danylchenko from Pexels)
I went for a speedy shop to a nearby supermarket this evening, a short walk from my flat, and a shop I visit regularly. All I wanted was a jar of tartare sauce, as I had decided on fish for supper. Trying to keep my time in public, indoor spaces to a minimum, I found what I was seeking rapidly and dashed to the check-out. There was a non-existent queue, so I arrived in front of the check-out assistant in no time. I nodded, smiled, and noticed she was not wearing the plastic gloves that I had seen her wear previously, since the Covid-19 crisis began.
“They have run out,” she said when I asked why she was glove-free.
“Run out?” I queried, my tone disbelieving. “Even for staff?”
The checkout assistant nodded, adding, “People are now just buying things like tissues, toilet paper and kitchen towels. They are not buying food. If it was me, I would buy the food. I think there is too much hype. Don’t you?”
“For sure,” I replied, secretly happy that I had stocked up on toilet paper for my last delivery. I cannot understand what it is about toilet paper that has led to panic buying. I am ashamed to have formed part of the frenzy. Yet somehow, I have. Each of us is stockpiling, yet each of us presents a public face that we are going with the flow. Panic-buying is for other people, we say. Let me tell you it is not.
Meanwhile there is humour, too, plenty of it sick. A good friend sent me a video today that showed a Covid-affected patient reporting his illness by telephone. Two masked doctors arrived to treat him at home 30 minutes later. Their solution? They shot the patient and his wife stone dead.
None of it makes sense, nor is it likely to do so. We are living in very unpredictable times.
