We still don't really know where we are

Up, up, up go the numbers - new cases - a new record. Poland, UK, US - Covid surging everywhere. And although numbers of deaths are also hitting new records here in Poland, they are no longer rising in step with new infections, suggesting that the disease is becoming less deadly, the treatment more effective.

But what of Covid's after-effects? Stories of people who recovered, left hospital months ago but are still feeling far from well are legion. I have read on Twitter that in the US, health insurance companies are allegedly announcing that they won't be extending or writing new policies for people who've been tested positive for Covid-19 - even though they may have been asymptomatic. In the UK, only 8% of the population tested have shown they have antibodies to Covid-19. So a long, long way to go before herd immunity kicks in.

The race for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, which in early summer seemed to be a sprint, now looks like a marathon. Unsurprisingly, Putin's announcement that Russia has one has turned out to be dubious. AstraZeneca announced that a volunteer involved in clinical trials had shown side effects, and the trials were temporarily halted - this is normal for clinical trials, one can only hope for the best.

Meanwhile, the global economy stutters. Some countries are doing better than others, for various reasons (a separate post about this soon). We don't  know where we are with this - businesses can't plan, are reticent to invest. But the bolder ones are taking bets on how the post-Covid world will look. We just don't know when a post-Covid world will emerge.

Simply from the epidemiological point of view - no one knows. On my Twitter account, I pinned the following tweet from the president of the Polish Virological Society: "We have calculations that show that by 7 April there may be 10,000 cases in Poland and by 11 April, 20,000 cases are expected. We hope that this will be the peak and the epidemic will start to fade away." This, from an expert. Note the two dates: 7 April and 11 April. And between them, a doubling of cases. Right now - even with the massive jump in cases we're seeing in Poland - cases are doubling every five weeks - not four days. And the epidemic is not fading away. I predict the second wave will really smack into us around the end of the first week of November, once the clocks have gone back, once the weather turns to dull grey rain drizzle and sleet, and our physical and psychological immune systems have weakened at the prospect of five more months of darkness and cold.

There are fewer deaths per thousand cases. But what of the long-term effects of the virus on the body? Some viruses (like the common cold and flu) come and go and leave no trace. Others, like herpes or HPV linger in the organism for the rest of your life, just waiting until your immune system is weakened by insufficient sleep, poor diet, stress, or compromised by another infection; then they reemerge to assert themselves again. It seems that Covid-19 falls into this category.

How should governments react? Boris Johnson's communication skills have failed entirely. When something like this happens to a prime minister at a time of unprecedented national crisis, you know his days in office are numbered.

So much depends on common sense within a population, and common sense is a matter of education and innate intelligence. The media noise around the current upsurge in cases will trigger behavioural changes in different populations in different ways. Some will take extra care - stay away from other people as much as possible, wash hands, keeps hands away from face, wear a mask in public, observe social distancing. Some will consciously ignore these guidelines, while others will just bumble on as they have done, not thinking, not reacting, not showing gratitude for good health to date.

A final thought to bear in mind. At the beginning of March of this year, had every single human being on this planet self-isolated themselves for 14 days - at whatever cost - the pandemic would have been over by the end of March. That's it. SARS-CoV-2 would have been dead. History. Wiped off the face of the earth, literally. Yes, there might have been deaths - maybe even a lot more deaths than Covid-19 has caused up to now, but it would have been over. Could we - as a species - have managed that?

This time six years ago:

Thoughts occasioned by today being equilux

This time nine years ago:
The magic of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand's Marlborough region

This time ten years ago:
Grandson of Poles elected to lead UK's Labour Party

This time 12 years ago:
Give me sunshine!