Some initial thoughts on the Coronavirus Pandemic

Not having written on this blog for over a year, I decided to pen my thoughts on the Coronavirus pandemic. I’ll keep it short.

First; this is only the latest outbreak of new epidemic disease to come out of east Asia. One could go back to the ‘Asian Flu’ of 1957 or the ‘Hong Kong Flu’ of 1968, however of more immediate relevance is Sars in 2003, and H1N5 or avian flu in 2005. It has been speculated that the cause here is ‘wet markets’ in China where animals are both slaughtered and sold in the same location.

The animals sold include wild animals, including bats, which harbour a range of viruses that, due to mingling of different species’ blood and other  bodily fluids can ‘jump’ species and eventually infect humans.

While some, particularly in such unenlightened quarters as supporters of Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil have used these circumstances to deflect the blame for the virus onto China, China does, it would seem, have a case to answer. One would hope that its government, at a minimum, can eliminate these sites of infection in the future.

China’s approach to the virus has also come under legitimate criticism for at first attempting to cover up the outbreak in Wuhan, even imprisoning doctors who highlighted it, and denying for a considerable period, that the disease could spread from human to human.

This criticism of China is fine, as far as it goes. The problem is that some appear to want to use it as an excuse for doing nothing themselves to combat the virus. Which brings me on to my second point.

China, certainly in an authoritarian manner, but also very effectively, managed to contain the virus in Hubei province and eventually to suppress it there.

Its neighbouring countries in east Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, through their experience with prior novel epidemics, have also managed to contain the virus through rigorous testing and isolation of patients. They have, as a result had comparatively very few deaths due to Covid 19.

Where the real failure has occurred has been in western Europe and now the United States. For whatever reason, lack of preparedness or complacency, perhaps, our European countries (and now America too) have absolutely failed to contain the virus, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths so far. This failure is of such magnitude that the east Asian countries, which appeared to have had the virus under control, are seeing a second wave of infections due to returning travellers from Europe and North America.

This is being little commented on here in Europe at the moment, but the truth is that we are paying a very high price, economically, socially, financially and most of all in human lives, for our complacency. We should have been prepared and we were not.

Even in relative ‘success stories’ in Europe such as Germany, deaths far outstrip those in South Korea: Germany has over 70,000 cases and about 850 deaths to date, by contrast, the Republic of Korea has 9,800 cases and 165 deaths. This is despite the latter being right beside China, with a massive volume of transport between  the two, and being unlucky enough to have a ‘super spreader’ in an evangelical church congregation. It is certainly not my intention to malign Italy at this time, but merely to note that it has now experienced around 12,000 deaths from the virus, more by a third than South Korea’s total number of cases.

If China’s neighbours were able to suppress the virus, European countries should have been able to do so also. Excuses that it was not possible to track and trace all travellers from China will not do. If Hong Kong, which is actually part of China, albeit with an autonomous government can do it, so could Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and indeed Ireland. It is too late for recriminations now, but preparations for a pandemic should become an intrinsic part of national defence planning from now on.

Third and final point. It has become customary to graft on to the pandemic one’s political and social agenda. E.g. the pandemic shows we must have a nationalised health service, it spells the end for the Trump presidency (or of capitalism itself to some commentators), in Ireland it shows the senselessness of partition on a small island. And so on.

It is far too early to say what the full economic and social implications of this shutdown of almost the entire developed world will be, but the results will be unpredictable and will not fall into anyone’s ideology. The pandemic will almost certainly not cause, as some appear to hope the world to fall into the template which they wish it to.

My only hope is that at least the minimum lessons about preventing another global pandemic can be learned.