And Wait For the Sunshine ...
Flatten your sombreros and wait for the sunshine, appears to be the key advice from Government in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis. The government model assumes a 60% infection rate is necessary to guarantee herd immunity.
With a population of 67 million, 40 million will be infected.Three million critical cases, will overload the 160,000 NHS beds available. With a 1% fatality rate, the death carts will be rolling down the streets of Britain. The cry of "Bring out Your Dead" would lead to 400,000 bodies, piled into emergency graves around the country.
Boris Johnson warned this week, we should prepare to lose more of our loved ones. Some thought this was a hint of another cabinet reshuffle, others the Number Ten Dog, called Dilyn was to be returned to the dogs home. It's a Jack Russell Cross, apparently, well, it certainly wasn't very pleased. It was left to the PM's fiancée, Carrie Symonds to assure dog lovers everywhere, the mutt was staying put.
To avoid a crisis in the health service, the government plan is to flatten the curve. We are moving from the "contain" phase to the "delay phase". The "contain" phase obviously didn't go to well, not much hope for the delay phase either. Hope is for the sunshine and UV rays to inhibit or kill the virus as the warm weather arrives.
So what can we really expect? The
evidence from China suggests the covid-19 epidemic operates within a
six week cycle. Statistically the reproduction ratio R(0) of the virus
is 2.3. Within 21 basic steps, the virus will impact a population of 90
million.
In China just 11 new cases were reported yesterday. In Hubei province, a population of some 59 million, a total of 68,000 cases have been reported and 3,062 deaths have been recorded. The infection rate is just over 1.1% of the population. The mortality rate is 4.5%. The adjusted mortality rate is 3.7%.
In Korea, 250,000 people have been tested. In a population of 51 million, just 8,000 cases have been identified. 66 deaths have been reported. The mortality rate is 0.8%.
In the U.K. so far 504 cases have been reported, with 8 deaths recorded. Worse is yet to come, assuming the China syndrome unfolds. The number of cases in the UK could rise to over 75,000 with 3,500 deaths involved. For many this will be a great discomfort and tragedy. For the UK as a whole, Government reports of our potential deaths appear to be greatly exaggerated ...
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