Trying to Strike a Pact with the Devil

“DECLARE A STATE OF PLAGUE STOP CLOSE THE TOWN”

Telegram message in The Plague by Albert Camus

Who in Government is the lead Minster with responsibility for negotiating with the Coronavirus? I ask because many people, including some in Government, appear to be of the view we can somehow negotiate a truce with the worse pandemic since 1918.

This sense that the virus somehow has human characteristics began back in February when the Secretary of State for Health informed the House of Commons that the Government was well prepared for what may be coming and that, in any case, the risk to the UK was deemed to be low. 10 months and 70,000 deaths later I do wonder if this fits with Matt Hancock’s definition of low risk.

I wonder also what made Hancock deduce that the risk was low. Given by February the virus was moving, out of control, across Asia and was already penetrating Europe, did Matt think the virus would reach the Channel and rethink its strategy? Perhaps he thought the virus could not swim or the English were so exceptional that it could only do limited damage. This thinking was rather reinforced when the Prime Minister popped up on ITV morning television to describe to his bemused interviewers the prospect of the virus being allowed to move through the community. This was accompanied with appropriate hand gestures showing movement. Had he done a deal with the virus that would allow it move freely through the population as long as it did not kill too many people?

The sense that you could appeal to the virus’s better nature came again to the fore when the time arrived to end what turned out to be the first lockdown. The sense was the virus had been allowed to do its worst for three months, so now was the time for it to show some fair play and back off. Although cases and deaths had fallen, the virus was far from being crushed out of existence particularly in the north of England. Matter not – it was time to return to something like normal and open up the economy once more. The TV news channels interviewed folks in the street who were showing Daily Mail levels of Dunkirk spirit. They were not going to be kowtowed by the virus and if they wanted to go to the shops, the pub or the hairdresser, then that was what they were going to do.

As a result of our refusal to accept the virus as a blind assassin that shows no mercy and will take every opportunity to infect as many people as possible irrespective of their age, occupation and social status, the UK has spent 6 months moving into and out of various levels of local tiered lockdowns including another, but shorter, national lockdown.

The Prime Minister hinted that the second short sharp national lockdown would put the virus finally in its place and life would return to something akin to normal for Christmas. The lockdown ended even though rates of infection and deaths had not fallen dramatically, and the counties of England were placed into one of three tiers. The reality was that only the most remote and isolated parts of the country found themselves in the lowest tier, whilst the most populated parts were in the highest tier (except London) and the rest of fair Albion was in the middle.

The agreement with the virus to play fair fell apart pretty quickly. The virus has never believed tier two is a route to tier one and set about spreading using the new opportunities to push London into the highest tier and, with levels of infections and deaths rising almost everywhere, we may not be far away from the whole of England (apart from Cornwall) being in tier three – as close to national lockdown we can get without calling it that.

However, there is a belief the virus has Christian beliefs and will take a Christmas holiday. The Prime Minister, who understandably does not want to be labelled as the Grinch who stole Christmas, appears to have done a another deal with the virus as he had decreed all bans on mixing and travelling around will be lifted for 5 days around the Christmas holidays. The Prime Minister appears not to see a national travel jamboree to deliver family get together super spreader events as a risk. It also appears to have escaped his attention that the US did something similar for Thanksgiving and now has cases of infection and deaths reaching new records every day. The reality is that people will shop, eat out and party like it is a normal Christmas period unless they are advised and encouraged to think about the hazards they face and act differently.

Meanwhile in Australia, New Zealand and large parts of Asia and Africa, life is slowly returning to something like normal. Their economies are opening up again and their citizens still have jobs and are back at work. Why is that so while Europe, the UK and US appear to be fighting a losing battle against the virus?

The answer is hiding in plain sight.

Europe and the US took the decision to suppress the virus while Australia and New Zealand etc decided to try and stamp it out. It was a case of “we will do our best to minimise and lessen the pandemic” v “we are going to eradicate this deadly disease and wipe it out”.

And who appears to have won the standoff? Well, the countries recognised as world leaders on dealing with the virus are New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and many others. These are the lands with fewest cases, fewest deaths, and policies and protocols in place to rapidly deal with any outbreak. These are the countries with crush the virus strategies.

Half a world away Boris Johnson, although not alone among national leaders, remained minded to strike a deal with the virus with a compromise between the economy and public health. The result has been a merry-go-round of full and partial lockdowns and regular spikes of infections and deaths. As a result, the UK has one of the worst death rates in the world and a recession that is deepest among the G7 countries.

It also appears Boris Johnson has been influenced by advocates of the “herd immunity approach”. Quite simply this would involve letting the virus run through the population, who would supposedly have minor symptoms, whilst shielding the country’s most vulnerable. The projected outcome is supposed to be the virus running out of people to infect, so itself dying out. Now to get to this magic solution, 70% of the population would have to become infected. Now you do the maths – how many is 70% of the population and given 70,000 of the population have already died as a result of the suppression strategy, how many extra would die to achieve herd immunity? Any volunteers for this experiment? I have heard Tory MPs advocate this approach while wilfully turning a blind eye to the lack of evidence that herd immunity does indeed confer immunity and the fact that this hypothesis is scientifically flawed with no data to support it. That, of course, did not stop the Prime Minster floating it and one wonders if it is a factor behind his apparent delay and obvious reluctance to announce local and national lockdowns.

This all leads me to the conclusion that a combination of Western arrogance, white leader self-belief, and nothing inhibiting profit generation, steered the UK (and many others) into a deeply flawed virus containment strategy. Perhaps in the UK, this was compounded by having a leader who lacks empathy and who leads a Party which is a welcome home for libertarians, and expert and scientific advice deniers. Appeals to Colonial self-belief also play well with the Tory Party.

Over the last months millions of citizens in the West have become infected and hundred of thousands have died. Although a vaccine is now being rolled out, it will be many months, perhaps years, before herd immunity is delivered. Tragically many more will sacrifice their health, and some their lives, in the cause of the virus suppression strategy.

Historians will surely ask why did so many have to die in the West when just half a world away the crush the virus strategy had become a proven success.