Gary's Soapbox: Covid-19 ~ To put things in a simplistic nutshell

Sunday 22 March 2020

Covid-19 ~ To put things in a simplistic nutshell

The government has totally messed up the Coronavirus response and I mean really messed up.
They should have listened to WHO, and other countries that were way ahead of the UK in dealing with the virus, they didn't, they thought they knew better, they didn't.
Not responding when they should have will cost a lot of lives, we could have been ahead of the game. We are now on the back foot.
Cheltenham should never have gone ahead and will have been a catalyst for the explosion that is coming.
All the lies and misinformation that Boris Johnson has spouted during Brexit has led to people not believing him when he needed them to. In essence, the chickens came home to roost.
This is the long haul now don't go thinking that Pubs, clubs etc will be opening next month. This will be the end of the year or even next year and I have no idea how that will work.
There are two things that might change this, a cheap and easy test for Coronavirus or a vaccine. Can't see a vaccine being available till next year. Maybe an existing drug can be modified?
It's just like Flu - sorry no it's not do some proper research. Coronavirus is twice as infectious as Flu.
Flu kills more people - at present, yes and we have immunity built up over years and vaccines for flu we have nothing for Coronavirus. Flu kills 0.1% of patients Covid-19 is over 10 times higher. If Coronavirus infected as many people as flu does the death rates would be 10 times higher.
It only affects older people badly - Chinese study showed that there was 14.8% mortality among over 80s. 41% of serious cases occurred among under 50s and 27% over 65s. You may be lucky if you get it and only have something mild or you may not its pot luck.
I addition they knew we had a higher population density than most and it would, therefore, spread more quickly, another reason they should have reacted sooner.