We are stuck with it for a while I fear...

THE mainstream media are not really our friends. No sooner has their clamour brought the lockdown they called for into operation than they are starting to ask when it will all end.

And when told not yet they start suggesting it should be next week, after Easter, you said a review after Easter... etc.`

For a start they only said they would review after Easter – not that there would be any changes necessarily. But MSM don't care. They just want the next story today instead of when it happens.

But where are we really? All the evidence says we are still a week, maybe more from a 'peak'. But what that will look like is anybody's guess.

• The virus, like all viruses, changes with time the science tells us.
• The epidemiology changes with time.
• It changes with response to actions.
• It changes with attitudes amongst the public.

Now I want all this over like every one does. But I would like to be still around to enjoy whatever 'all over' looks like. And premature relaxation could ensure the permanent relaxation of mine and thousands more breathing function.

Other nations have different epidemics to ours. We believe that a major vector for infection in Europe was people travelling to and mixing with others in the ski resorts. Apres ski became avant infection.

So it is perhaps that Austria has had a different experience. More like Germany. And so we read that Austria are considering relaxation in a planned and staged form. Small shops first, then cafes and restaurants, then more BUT – they require wearing of masks inside all shops etc. I say considering but if you read the MSM you may think it is already set in stone. It is not yet.

But what about the reality? There can be NO return to normal of any sort until two things have happened, and one matters more than the other:

• We have to have a vaccine.
• And we very much need an effective treatment.

Look at the facts:

This virus was entirely new and unknown until December last year.

• It has a re-infection rate above 2.0 which means more than a doubling every time someone is infected. At all. Symptoms or not.
• It is already world-wide thanks to the combination of air travel everywhere, low costs of aviation, and the dreaded 'bucket list' ensuring people do indeed go everywhere.
• And now it seems it may infect animals, even our pets.

What all this means is that UNTIL we have a vaccine we cannot return to anything close to normal.

And until we have an effective treatment not everyone can ever return to normal.

Think influenza. Think 1918. Think of 20-50 MILLION dead. New strain of virulent virus. No vaccine. Re-infection around 2.0.

Now move that up to 2020. We have turned flu into a routine but it still kills upwards of 600,000 globally every year. And until we gained the ability to tailor new vaccines to each new strain it went on killing in big numbers every year and sometime horrifically. But back then we had virtually no aviation to spread it (the Great War did the 1918 job for it).

Untl the vaccine, old people died in big numbers every year and we had little means to treat or save them. Today we do try with coronavirus but only one third make it.

We cannot sustain a world in which this coronavirus is virulent all the time – the cost would be unmanageable. Thousands of ICUs, millions of ventilators, millions of medical staff – mostly on standby, just waiting..

No way in that environment can we have unlimited concerts, race meetings, Olympics, football, cricket, golf, pubs, clubs, teeming malls and shops and schools and universities and aviation, and trains, and buses... and... it will not work.

There is a way back. But it will take courage and determination. And sacrifice.

If there was no one alive today in the at risk group, no one over 70, then we could juyst about cope until a vaccine came along.

So here is a possible plan B:

All those people like me who are the ones who will cost big time and probably die go into units like the one I live in. Independent living (of a sort for a while) but contained and served.

And the world gets back to normal to pay for it. People get ill, few need ICU, even fewer ventilation, even fewer die. Flu like?

The contract is -

• we agree to keep out of the way until the vaccine arrives and
• you all agree to keep us supplied with everything we need and
• do your best if and when we get small, containable outbreaks of covid-19.

Say 3 million people under isolated care at a cost per person of £1,000 a month. That is £3billion a month – a lot less than current ruination of our economy is costing. Worst case 12 months to a vaccine. £36 billion – still way less than current costs. Then those 3 million (plus medical staff) get the vaccine first so they can re-enter society.

And I can spend the winter in Spain again. And the spring in France, where I would have been right now.

Think about it and stop the press trying to kill me and my cohort and ruin your lives forever with their foolish bleating.

If you have been, thank you for reading.

(vale Prof Tom Stafford)