Some thoughts on Covid-19
Those who have been following my twitter recently will know that I’ve become a little obsessed about the recent Covid-19 outbreak. At any given moment I have the worldometer or covid19info.live websites open in different tabs, as well as discussion threads in /r/ukpolitics and /r/unitedkingdom. I eagerly await the 2pm numbers so see if my predictions have been correct (sometimes yes, sometimes no), and I follow the reactions of other countries with a keen eye. I’ve decided to write this little piece for my own sanity, and assert the need for everyone to be alert, not anxious.
That’s the key. There’s no need to panic. Panic doesn’t help anything. Alertness and appropriate concern does. It’s been interesting looking at different people’s responses, and they generally fall into three categories. I call them the preppers, the panickers, and the pah-humbuggers. There’s a fourth smaller group that I like to think I’m part of, and I want that group to grow: that is the alert but calm group.
This piece is divided approximately into two parts: one exploring the public reaction, the second exploring the disease itself and the respective governments efforts.
Part 1: Preppers, Panickers, Pah-humbuggers, and the alert not anxious.
The preppers are to be found on /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu. The former is a well moderated subreddit dedicated to serious discussion of the outbreak. The latter is a sinophobic conspiracy theory hellhole. I’ve been following reddit’s reaction since the virus first left China. Every single person on /r/coronavirus advocated stockpiling food, toilet roll (accurately predicting that toilet roll is the first item to go in panic buying scenarios) and masks, mocking those claiming this was unnecessary.
These people are aggressive pessimists. They look at competing interpretations of data and latch onto the worse case scenarios. Experts have said anywhere between 20% and 80% of the world’s population could become infected. Naturally these people latch onto the 80% figure. 80% of the world WILL become infected to these people. Probabilistic outcomes are swapped for deterministic ones. I’m a poker player, so I understand that predicting things with certainty is useless; placing a set of outcomes on a scale of probabilities is a better approach. There’s a low chance of 80% of the world getting infected: that’s the figure you get with a standard logistic curve and assuming no intervention happens. Equally 20% is improbable, as that assumes China-level lockdown in every single country, and it’s already too late for that. somewhere between 40–70% depending on the country is perhaps more reasonable.
I still frequent /r/coronavirus, but I filter by the ‘good news’ flair, and don’t go into the comments. Listening to these people doesn’t make you any more prepared, it drives you into panic.
I know because last week that’s what happened to me. I had a little bit of a meltdown over the consequences of Covid-19. I’m young and healthy in a remote part of the UK, so my personal chances of coming out the other side in good shape are remarkably high. But I was worried that food supply lines might get shut off. I was worried my home town of Bristol might become quarantined and I’d get stuck outside, away from my family. I was worried about my parents and grandparents, both in their mid to late 50s and 70s respectively.
I wasn’t a prepper, I wasn’t fearing the worst and acquiring an apocalypse level of supplies. But I was a panicker. Panickers are to be found on twitter and reddit. They’re confused, scared, and anxious. They’re to be found on the high street nervously scanning each shop to check soap and toilet roll quantities despite having enough to last months already. I resisted panic buying, but I was certainly panicking. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but Coronavirus content. Everything stopped being fun. It was a bit grim to be honest.
I had a choice then, I could remove myself entirely from the news cycle, ignore it all and hope that would calm me down. But honestly, I think the uncertainty would have made it worse, as the uncertainty of what might happen next was already the major source of my extreme nervousness. Instead I faced the numbers daily, I created spreadsheets and looked at how the rest of the world was doing. I read the government’s plan and devoured every piece I could find that was assessing the reaction. I quickly found it easy to sort pundits into doomer and pah-humbug category, paying more attention to the level headed analysis coming from the New Statesman and the BBC. (Doomers are a subset of the preppers, who aren’t in a frenzy, but are feeding narratives that provoke panickers). I calmed down, and moved into the alert-but-not-anxious category.
The pah-humbuggers feel smug. They feel they’re better than the hysterical panickers and preppers. What silly people, stockpiling toilet paper. It’s just flu! These people are just as bad as the doomers. They are dangerously complacent, and will sleepwalk into a nightmare if we don’t ensure they start paying attention. Not for their sake, but for everyone else’s. It’s not just flu, and even if they make it out okay, it’s deeply irresponsible to endanger the elderly and otherwise vulnerable in their community by their apathy.
Instead we need to be in the last category. The alert not anxious. We must not panic. We must also not be complacent. We should be washing our hands more often, avoiding large gatherings if possible, and working from home if we can. It’s a little 90s self-helpy, but the idea of not worrying about what you can’t control is true. Either it’s in your control, so you can do something about it and stop worrying, or it’s out of your control, so no need to worry. Once you’re in a position where you’ve done all you can, all you can do is pay attention to the government’s advice and continue, not as normal, but with calm vigilance.
Part 2: The virus and state’s responses
The virus is spreading, predictably, at an exponential rate. The world data is a little messy due to the huge growth in China in the early stages, and their subsequent successful shutdown. The covid19info website (linked above) provides useful world data outside of China and for specific countries, and it’s still in the first stages of a logistic curve before the inflection point. (A logistic curve is an exponential curve that then slows down, the inflection point is when growth rate slows, this video helps a lot).
But the approach by different countries and the outcomes is worth commenting on. Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea have been remarkable (initial growth there was scary, but they’re starting to level off at about a 8000ish total cases). America and Iran have been deeply irresponsible. Italy initially was not good, but have now taken more proactive measures. The UK have fallen somewhere in between.
As the graph above shows, we are progressing significantly slower than Korea and Italy, two of the new epicentres outside mainland China. This should quell those panickers and doomers claiming that in two weeks we will be the new Italy. Current trends clearly point to that not being the case, and the UK continues to test fairly widely — not as widely as Korea, but much better than America. But equally it’s no reason to breathe a sigh of relief. Our growth is still exponential, just not as steep as some other countries. We still need to remain calm but alert. Pay attention to what we’re doing with our hands, increase our respiratory and general hygiene (cough into your elbow and wash your hands for at least 20 seconds), and dial back social interactions.
One thing that I think is true of most crises is that panic is often as bad or worse than the source of the crisis itself — it spreads quicker and can often make it more difficult to tackle the actual crisis. I think if nothing else, the UK has been remarkably good at ensuring panic stays at fairly low levels. Boris Johnson’s first press briefing flanked by two experts who he repeatedly deferred to was a masterclass in public communications.
I’m also reassured that the UK has a reasonably solid plan in place, and the approach so far of testing those with symptoms from epicentres and their contacts is a good, economical approach that doesn’t stretch resources. I think the plan of accepting widespread infection, but over a length of time long enough so as to not overwhelm the NHS is also a sensible one. It strikes a balance between public health and allowing society to continue to operate.
I am however disappointed by the lack of rigour at entry points: people from Milan arriving should not be allowed to just stroll into our cities and transport networks without a single official either assessing them or asking them to self-isolate. All that’s being done is Public Health England is simply ‘advising’ them to self-isolate, but whether they will do that is unlikely.
I am also disappointed that we are still in the containment phase rather than moving onto delay. Major sporting fixtures are still going ahead, and social distancing doesn’t appear to be a major part of the public information campaign yet. We need to be proactive, not reactive.
Government advisers at the press conference yesterday (9th March) suggested it’s not about what measures we implement, but when. I think this is sensible, people will get fatigued after awhile so it makes sense to be careful about timings. Nonetheless, having absolutely nothing at points of entry I think is still silly.
Some have advocated closing schools, and I’m in two minds about whether this is sensible. On one hand, schools, hospitals, public transport, universities, and mass gatherings are the major disease vectors. Evidence from the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak shows that states in America that closed schools and public rallies succeeded in flattening the infection. But the Spanish flu mainly killed young people, the opposite to this pandemic. My worry is that in closing schools, asymptomatic children may bring the virus to those who will end up looking after them — more often than not grandparents. Moreover, children are likely to mingle outside of school anyway, probably in public spaces like parks and malls. At least in a school the ratio of children:adults is lower, and there can be a somewhat disciplined approach to hygiene.
If any of the four major disease vectors I previously mentioned do need to be curtailed, I would close Universities first. Most students can work from home, edge cases that need to be more hands on could be allowed to go ahead: remember this is about slowing the spread, if more than half of students (say) work from home, that’s already a ways towards preventing rapid spread. Mass gatherings too I would seek to prohibit as a priority: sporting events, conferences, and concerts should all be postponed or cancelled until we’re well past the peak of infections.
Nevertheless, I trust that the government is being given the best advice by top experts. Chris Whitty certainly seems to have his head screwed on, and I’m a mere humanities undergrad, so I will defer to their expertise.
As Mike Bird has pointed out, successful flattening of the outbreak like in Hong Kong primarily remains in the hands of the public: “ the overwhelming bulk of the social distancing is done privately and voluntarily.”. Whilst he is sceptical of that being replicated in the west, it demonstrates that a strong state led approach like China’s isn’t the only way to tackle this emergency. It’s also why a disappointing response from our own government just means it’s more important for individuals to remember to act in solidarity with the rest of society and exercise good hygiene and social distancing. Nevertheless, the government has a role in promoting these practices, and a responsibility to take robust action when public behaviour doesn’t change.
To draw this to a close, then, I’m not worried about the UK. I think we can and will flatten the peak of this outbreak to a sufficient degree (the US however is going to be a travesty. Testing has been slow and expensive for individuals, a recipe for disaster). However, the best case scenario for the UK can only be realised if everyone takes responsibility. We all owe it to the immunocompromised, the diabetic, the asthmatic, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups to exercise caution. We also should not panic buy essential items that poorer and ill people rely on. Wash your hands more often than normal for 20 seconds. Work from home if you can. Don’t go to that concert you were looking forward to. But most importantly, be alert, not anxious.
n.b I have another piece written about how this outbreak highlights the need for a strong welfare state, but that’s for a political writing module I’m taking and it might flag it as plagiarised if I publish it before it’s marked and moderated, so expect that in about June when I graduate just in case.