Monday 9 March 2020
This is the beastie that causes Covid-19 (JONGHO SHIN)
It seems that slowly the country is getting its head round what is happening. The streets outside my flat are much quieter, there are fewer rubbish bags on the pavements, and it seems as if some of the shops are either closing on odd days or shortening their working hours. Bit by bit businesses are becoming adjusted. Plenty are making a loss and stock markets around the world are tumbling. They are calling today Black Monday. The original was on 19 October 1987, when the Dow Jones fell by 22.6%, the largest one-day drop in history. Gold has done some fairly impressive things, although at the moment seems unable to make up its mind.
Most of the people I see when I am out and about on the streets seem now to be fairly healthy. Or, they are especially good at hiding symptoms. I am avoiding public transport in all its forms, including taxis, and am walking everywhere. If nothing else, this Covid-19 scare is working wonders for my fitness and I am clocking up the paces on my Fitbit. I have no worries when walking outside and have noticed that an increasing number of people are wearing masks.
I am not persuaded by the paper masks. In surgery, sometimes they would barely last a single case, so how a paper mask can be usefully recycled escapes me. I have now purchased a portable sewing machine from Amazon – it is decades since I last used one – and tomorrow will find some material, likely from John Lewis, and perhaps have a go at making my own. I sew people up for a living, so how hard can it be to make a mask? We used to make our own cloth hats and masks for the operating theatre anyway, so now seems as good an occasion as any to have another go.
Toilet paper is definitely disappearing from the shops and I can only thank Heaven that we bought in a reasonable supply with the last Waitrose delivery. We seem to have sufficient essentials for the moment. I am not sure how one estimates the quantity of loo paper one might need, and I have no idea how those with large families will manage. I can only hope the Government is not bluffing when it says there is sufficient to go around. Perhaps part of the problem are the just-in-time arrangements that the supermarkets now have, where they only keep slightly more on the shelves than they think they will need. The supplier does the same. Everything is just-in-time, which I presume means that any break in the chain and the whole thing comes down like a pack of cards.
I am still feeling guilty about Malta, which is where the British Guild of Travel Writers is scheduled to hold its AGM, and that is any day now. The Guild is being hosted and cared for in an enviable way and much of me would like to join them. Of many lands, Malta is holding its own, assuming I can believe what they are saying. The island had one case, then three, and that is where they are staying. For the moment, at least.
The situation this morning – 9 March 2020 (courtesy Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University)
A surgeon friend of mine out there, and whose views I much respect, has said only this morning:
“Here in Malta, great walking weather and the kite surfers, hangliders and sailors are out enjoying it. Re Covid-19 only one case of a 14-year-old Italian girl who flew back from Italy. Luckily, she and her family self-quarantined and though all tested positive, no further cases since theirs last week.”
A Guild member wrote to me this morning, to encourage me to attend the AGM. A friend had told her that only the elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions were at risk and so I should be exempt. Again, I agonised, but then wrote the following back to her:
“Re Malta, the issue is not me but those with whom I come into contact. I will take my chances in respect of acquiring the disease but, in my family, I have one who is elderly and another who is not so well. If they get Covid-19, and I might be the one to give it to them, they may be in trouble. In addition, even if one survives the disease, it is clearly not something one would want to have. Although 80% have little or no symptomatology, 15% will have severe disease and 5% will be critical. Up to 10% of those who are affected will end up on intensive care, assuming there are sufficient beds available… your friend is almost right if one is considering the “me-myself-personally” side of Covid-19 infection. But the view does not take into account either the severity of the disease one might get if infected and, most importantly, the chances of giving it to others.
The figures out of China I have seen suggest the following mortalities (rounded to nearest 0.5%):
80+: 22%
70-79: 8%
60-69: 4%
50-59: 1.5%
40-49: 0.5%
30-39: <0.5%
For gender distribution, for some reason the ladies become infected, and die, only half as much as the men. The figures above are amalgamated for both genders. The ladies can thus reduce the numbers slightly, while the men should increase them. It will be interesting to see how the figures look as and when intensive care beds become filled, but there must be a risk that the NHS will run out of intensive care capacity. Even before Covid-19 struck, the beds in NHS England were already 75% filled. The mortality figures for Covid-19 are at least ten times greater, and its infectivity is also higher, than for seasonal influenza.”
I prattled on further but the bottom line, I felt, was that I should stay and let the others go.
With so many sports fixtures being postponed and cancelled, although in UK there still seem to be plenty taking place, I sense there is another competition developing. This time it is one a country wishes to lose. The competition? The number of cases of Covid-19. My country used to be at position number 10 in the global list, but we have slipped down to number 12. Others are overtaking us, which is clearly bad for them but gave me a brief surge of optimism today. If a country tries hard then it can have a definite effect. My countrymen and women may be coughing and slobbering in places they should not, but slowly our behaviour patterns are changing, and I can see a distant future. There are plenty of hurdles on the way.
Whether a Brexiteer or a Remainer, and my own position will remain entirely personal, I had a spark of pride at being British today. I looked at the map of mainland Europe, to see the place being slowly swamped by Covid-19. The map on the mainland was a dark maroon. The UK was different, as we were coloured more lightly. The English Channel was the dividing line between the colours. It will not stay that way, of course, but for a brief flash I could see the advantage of the narrow stretch of water, which separates us from our Continental colleagues.
Where I was not so happy was when I attended a London venue for another lecture. Because the speaker was so popular, even if he did turn up ten minutes late, the venue had squeezed 100 people into a room half the size of a squash court. There were some who simply accepted it while others clearly did not like being in such a small place with so many others. Before the talk began, instead of propping up the bar, which is sometimes my normal habit, I went to the floor above, found a solo seat, and stayed there until just before the talk. I dashed to the gents a short time beforehand as well and had the difficulty of opening the venue’s sturdy doors without touching the metal door handle with my bare hand. I pulled my jacket sleeve over my hand to do this, so only cloth touched metal.
I thought I had got away with it, but a fellow visitor saw me, winked, and said, “I’m pleased to see that.”
Naturally, I had to agree.
Once the talk started, I ended up in the lecture room, on a tiny chair next to someone I had never met before. Our two combined rear ends were larger than the two chairs on which we sat, so we spent the next hour rubbing hips. Best I understand it, Covid-19 is not transmitted through the hip, which is perhaps just as well.
Near the end of the talk, my neighbour gave a humungous cough and quite properly placed a hand in front of their mouth. This was perfect behaviour and exactly what the Government recommends. What the authorities do not tell you is that when you place your hand in front of your mouth as you cough, you may avoid spraying slobber on those in front, but the gunk simply flies out the side. I saw it coming, so flicked my head away, and prayed my neighbour was not shedding Covid-19.
First Defence – a life experience when you first use it
I am using plenty of First Defence at the moment. Whenever I go places that are likely to contain other people, beforehand I spray the stuff up each nostril. I first came across it during the Beijing Olympics, when we used it for our athletes when they travelled by air. It proved to be highly successful in keeping colds at bay. When you squirt it up your nose, your eyes pour, your nose pours, and for several minutes you could be mistaken for a Covid-19 victim. However, in a short while everything settles. I make sure I breath through my nose only, as the First Defence has placed a layer of something horrid at the back of the nose, which is said to give a fighting chance of avoiding infection.
One member of my family has just started work south of London and reported in to say that public transport was looking quite empty. They would normally have to wait for five underground trains in the morning. Now it was possible to climb aboard the first one and even find somewhere to sit.
Meanwhile as I look from the window of my London flat, where I would usually see plenty of people walking, the streets are empty. It is as if the public has placed itself into voluntary lockdown. This will be creating mayhem for the economy but is for the moment probably no bad thing. For my few investments, I have already received a notice to say that I am more than 10% poorer. I have decided to sit tight and hope.
The rest of the world appears to be in bad state, too. Plenty are worse off than UK. The Italians now have 463 dead, trading in US shares was briefly suspended after falls in the price of oil, and Israel is insisting on a 14-day quarantine for anyone who arrives in the country. Germany has had its first two deaths and China is still telling everyone how its methods are working. With only 40 new cases in the last 24 hours, they claim this is their lowest count since January, when reporting began. The Chinese actions have been strongly supported by the Head of WHO, despite journalists trying very hard to make him say something different. He will not be drawn into commenting on how he thought it was handled at the start, but his lack of comment is telling.
Dr Zhu Heping – the fourth colleague of the original whistleblower to die
Another Chinese doctor in the virus epicentre, Dr Zhu Heping, has also died. He was a colleague of Dr Li Wenliang, who tried to warn authorities about the virus but was rapidly accused of spreading misinformation. He, too, subsequently died. It makes you think how exposed these doctors have been, and not only to the virus. Zhu Heping was the fourth co-worker of Dr Li Wenliang to die.
South Korea is also beginning to show off. It has claimed to be near what it is calling a turning point. It has had 69 new cases in the last 24 hours, its lowest daily increase for ten days. Uganda has also refused to admit 22 foreigners to their country when they arrived at Entebbe International Airport, because the visitors refused to self-quarantine on arrival, and yet had arrived from high-risk locations. I sympathise with the Ugandans. What, pray, was going through the heads of the new arrivals? What made them travel at all?
Meanwhile, in UK, we are still in what they are calling a containment phase. I am unsure of the precise definition of that. Basically, you behave on the basis that you are more of a risk to others than they are to you. That way it seems to work.
