The government currently says that 60% of people need to become infected to develop "herd immunity". Now, a little bit of maths follows:
The UK population is approximately 65 million people.
60% infection rate means that 39 million people get infected.
Let's say that 50% of people show symptoms of the virus and 50% are asymptomatic.
This means 19.5 million people will show symptoms of the virus and be at the risk. (For reference, this 229 times more cases than was seen at the peak in China).
If we assume a 2% fatality rate (as is currently being seen in the rest of the world):
This implies approximately 400,000 people dead.
Now, if that isn't already a frightening enough statistic...
The actual asymptomatic rate of the virus is unknown. Peston has an excellent explanation of this here. Medical experts around the world are trying to calculate in what percentage of people symptoms show. If the asymptomatic rate is actually closer to 20%. Then:
31,200,000 people show symptoms of the virus.
The deaths escalate to:
624,000.
Oh.What might "herd immunity" in the UK actually mean in numbers. An explainer. pic.twitter.com/qVesmBZK1a— Paul Colgan (@paulcolgan) March 13, 2020
So all of the government's maths about the danger of the virus is based upon an assumption which we don't actually know the answer to.
Ok so I've shown you some base case scenarios about the level of fatalities we could see. But I'm afraid to say that these statistics get worse in terms of the UK's preparedness.
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| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/virus-spread-pushes-italian-hospitals-toward-breaking-point?sref=DpmagNCl
As we can immediately see, the NHS is not well prepared to deal with a huge influx of patients. Now, you may counter-argue (as the medical "experts" leading the response have done) that the government is trying to lower the tip of the bell curve so that the demand is more evenly spread. However, we have seen in Italy that attempting to control this virus is like trying to hold back the tide.
Should there be a sudden increase in demand for hospital beds, then it is likely the NHS will be overcrowded and all other care procedures will immediately halt. Therefore, the death count from other diseases and viruses is likely to soar as they try to deal with the Coronavirus.
In countries like Iran and Italy, we have seen the deaths spiral upwards. Italy has had a death rate of 7%, far higher than the estimated 2%, primarily because those who need care are unable to access it quickly due to the surge in demand.
The UK has fewer beds than Italy, so we can imagine a similar scenario easily arising here.
Secondly, the UK has been heavily criticised by the World Health Organisation over its response to allowing the virus to spread and infect more people.
We have seen in China that it is certainly possible to lock down the country and deal with the virus in a speedy and effective manner. Whilst it is important not to overreact, one wonders why a similar set of precautions to those seen in Europe has not been seen in the United Kingdom.
Thirdly, what sort of sovereign government decides to abandon all testing of the virus for those not in a critical condition? How can the public possibly protect themselves if official numbers of cases are drastically underestimating the true figures?
This is the reason why Trump now mulls extending the travel ban to the UK, and if I was him, I would add the UK to the list of banned countries immediately. In the countries which are no longer afflicted with the virus, arriving UK tourists often have to self-quarantine for 14 days, or are refused access altogether.
It is staggering that the response of the government is so different to that of other countries.
Finally, yesterday evening, the government U-Turned and planned to ban mass gatherings (although, to be fair, most of them had already been cancelled).
I have to say, the UK response to this crisis has demonstrated a complete lack of competence from a government which has a startling majority. They were right to turn on the fiscal taps on Wednesday in the budget, but that does not contain the virus. I have no doubt that if the 60% target infection level is achieved, Britain will be hated by the rest of the world which did whatever it takes to stop the spread of the virus.
I would like to briefly mention the news organisations which have been reporting on Coronavirus. Without a doubt, the BBC's coverage has been disastrous and misleading - it appears to be being used as a vessel of the state agenda rather than an unbiased source. Instead, I have been collecting information from a compendium of privately-owned companies. Primarily using Bloomberg to get a global perspective on the UK's inability to deal with a crisis. However, even Piers Morgan has been criticising the government lately over its response.
Therefore, my advice is simple, take all information with a pinch of salt and be critical. We know that the virus can be halted with the right measures. There is no need for the government to give in so easily. Update: I thought it was worthwhile updating my response to this topic. Clearly, government officials are avid readers of lythoughtsonfinance and almost immediately pivoted their position after I posted this (on the Monday following). As we have seen, the spread of the virus was rapid based upon the increase in deaths and we can hope that the social distancing measures being enforced are making a substantial difference in stemming the flow of the virus. |
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