Only Two Rules Are Needed To Deal With COVID

The government's latest set of byzantine rules have come into force in relation to COVID19.  They appear as irrational and unfathomable as all the others that went before, and, by the time this appears, they may well have changed them, and introduced others.  But, the truth is that only two rules are required to deal with the COVID outbreak.  They are:-

1. If you or someone in your household is aged over 60, or have a medical condition that compromises your immune system, avoid close physical contact with anyone from outside your household, in the same way that people who have nut allergies avoid nuts and products containing nuts
   
2. If you or someone in your household does not fall into the above category, then carry on life as normal, because there is no statistically significant risk of serious ill-health to you from COVID, and you, your family and society is at much greater risk from everyone not working and producing the goods and services we all require, and from the damage to mental and other health that prolonged periods of isolation causes.

The facts, which were known from the beginning, are that COVID19 is a virus that almost exclusively affects the elderly.  More than half the people who have died are aged over 80, the majority of them over 85.  Of all deaths from COVID19, 92% are people aged over 60.  Of the remaining 8%, 7% are people under 60, but who have some known medical condition such as a chest complaint, diabetes, or obesity that compromises their immune system.  Its likely that the other 1% also have some such condition that just hasn't been diagnosed.  The truth is, and always has been that if you are under 60, and have no medical condition likely to compromise your immune system, you are at statistically no significant risk of serious ill-health from COVID19.  Indeed, 80% of people, even those that contract it, do not even know they have had it.  For, this 80% of the population, COVID19 is less serious than the common cold, which is also caused by the coronavirus.

So, it makes absolutely no sense to close down economies, causing massive economic and social damage, when all that is required is to isolate the 20% of the population actually at serious risk from the virus.  What is more, a large proportion of that 20% are in known locations that should be ideal for isolating from the virus.  Many are in elderly care homes, or else in hospital.  Surely, it should be a simple matter to ensure that such places are safe for the vulnerable people within them!  Surely, it should have been possible to ensure that they were isolated from the outside world, that staff in these places were provided with adequate PPE, and that appropriate contact protocols were put in place so that infections could not spread to the patients and residents of such places.  Instead, they have been the killing grounds in which the virus was allowed to spread and run rampant.

Care home staff, as well as hospital staff were not provided with PPE to prevent them spreading the virus to patients and residents.  There was a lack of isolation units so that hospital patients with the virus could be kept separate from other patients who did not.  That meant, as also happened in Italy that hospitals became a breeding ground for the virus being spread to patients who had been admitted for non-COVID related illnesses.  That was what happened to the comedian Eddie Large, for example, who was admitted to hospital with a heart complaint, and then contracted the virus whilst in hospital.  That is a similar situation to what happened several years ago with people who went into hospital for minor operations, but who then died because they contracted MRSA whilst in hospital.

The same was true in relation to the spread of the virus in care homes, but, here, we also saw the atrocious situation whereby people who had COVID19, and who were in hospital were then released back to care homes, where they then inevitably spread the virus amongst other residents!  This has been a catalogue of dire and fatal errors, none of which were necessary.

A similar situation has existed in relation to underpaid and overworked care workers on zero hours contracts who provide care to elderly and vulnerable people in their own homes.  Again, there has been a lack of PPE, as well as a lack of adequate contact protocols to prevent the spread of the virus to these vulnerable groups.  Indeed, adequate contact protocols would, in many cases have required additional staffing to ensure that personal care for the housebound, let alone bed-ridden could be provided safely.

But, many people aged over 60, like me, are not in those conditions.  Most of us live in households with others aged over 60.  For those still in employment, it should have been a matter of course, for the government to enable such workers to take indefinite sick leave on full pay.  Certainly that would have been cheaper and more rational than closing down a large part of the economy, and paying out furlough payments to millions, which itself only accounted for 80% of wages.  It is quite easy nowadays to do all your shopping online, and have it delivered, without need of any physical contact.  I have found that TESCO, Morrisons and Iceland have been great in that, with the shopping left in bags at the front door, to bring in when clear.  Sainsbury's were crap, making it impossible to get delivery slots, so I won't be bothering with them again.

But, everything can be done online not just grocery shopping.  Amazon provides many things, banking, payment of bills and so on are all now possible to do online, or even by phone.  I find it incredible and infuriating when I see old people complaining about young people not abiding by the latest government unfathomable rules, whilst they are themselves continuing to insist on going out to the shops and other locations when their is absolutely no need for them to do so, and when it is they that are at risk from the virus, and not the young people they are complaining about!

This virus is going to be around probably forever, just as all the other coronaviruses that cause the common cold and so on are always around.  A vaccine is not going to be ready for probably at least another year, and may not work on any new strains of the virus that are more likely to arise the longer it is allowed to circulate.  The only rational means of killing the virus and stopping its continued spread is via the production of herd immunity, and that requires that the vast majority of the population who are not at serious risk from it, obtain that immunity by infection.  If that had been pursued back in March, the virus would probably now be struggling to find any new hosts to infect, and would be dying out.  

It is clearly madness to think that you can continually or repeatedly close down large parts of the economy without causing devastating and long lasting damage.  It is equally madness to think that you can have large proportions of the working population not in work, and yet being paid wages via the furlough scheme.  The borrowing to finance that for the few months it has existed has already caused borrowing to spiral, which will cause interest rates to rise, which will cause its own set of problems in the weeks and months to come.