Coronavirus - end of the beginning

In chess terminology, there is a situation called a ‘zugzwang’. This means that a player is forced into a situation where no matter what move they make, the outcome is disadvantageous.

The coronavirus outbreak similarly put the world into zugzwang. As it is a new virus without vaccines, the world is forced to retreat to the last line of defence – that of lockdown. The damage that a lockdown can do to the economy, to mental health, education of children and in a myriad of other ways, seemed smaller than that of the virus, especially nearer the beginning of the pandemic, when death rates were reported to be well above 3%.

While it might have been prudent to ensue strict lockdown early on, when we did not know the extent of the threat, we all knew what the endgame would be – that eventually societies would have to return to something akin to normality; albeit most likely in incremental steps. The pact to surrender our liberties (in Liberal countries at any rate) extends only to buy us time to allow the research to be carried out to inform us of the proportionate response.

Now, after much frantic research, the nature of this common enemy is taking clearer shape, and much of it is good news. It appears that indeed the coronavirus is very infectious – so infectious that the amount of people infected is far greater than previous estimates. But this also means that it is less deadly.

Antibody testing in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and several locations in the US, including Chelsea and Los Angeles County all show that the spread of the virus, when randomly testing the population, is orders of magnitudes greater than the official confirmed figures. In fact, if these estimates are accurate, the number of people who have already had the virus will be 20-60 times more than what is officially recorded. This also means, as the denominator increases, that the death rate from the virus is much more likely to be in the realm of 0.2-0.3% (compared with 0.1% for seasonal flu, which in 2019 was involved in 705 deaths in Australia, 24,000 in the US and 26,408 in the UK (2017/18 data)).

This realisation that the virus is not as deadly as first supposed is also backed up by a study in Boston that examined 408 homeless people at a shelter for symptoms associated with coronavirus (fever, cough, shortness of breath etc) as well as being tested for coronavirus. While less than 12% (47/408) showed any symptoms, 36% (147/408) tested positive for coronavirus. For those positive for the virus, 87.8% were symptom free.

So that’s good. The virus is many times less deadly than we feared. One side of the zugzwang is eased. The other side of the zugzwang however, the economic, psychological and other damages caused by the lockdown, is not too frequently discussed and may in fact be far harsher than people realise.

It is perhaps unavoidable that medical experts, who are understandably given sudden prominence by the media, will give advice to avoid the harms of a virus in a pandemic. That's the area of their expertise. However, the lockdown can also kill and harm many people by other means. And unlike the daily quotas of the pandemic, these deaths are often unreported. It is not a zero-sum game in other words - far from it. 

For example, there has been a peak in deaths at home from salvageable causes in the UK. Meeting minutes of A&E chiefs in London show that many senior medics are worried that many ill people are not visiting the hospital due to either fear or that they do not wish to pose a burden on the NHS during a pandemic. In fact, English hospital beds for non-coronavirus related illnesses are uncommonly empty (160,000 emergency admissions in week 14 of 2019, versus 60,000 admission in week 14 of 2020).

Scottish data also saw 643 more deaths than average in the first week of April but only 282 were linked to coronavirus. That leaves 361 excess deaths unexplained. One reason given by senior medics is that in the lockdown, people are too afraid to use the medical system.

In the US, a New York doctor reported in the New York Times that there has been a similar striking reduction (40-60%) in the number of emergency patients. In Spain, a study found also around a 50% reduction in healthcare activities across 73 centres since the coronavirus outbreak. The same is again seen in Australia, where a 50% decline in new cancer patients and a 30% decline in cardiac emergencies have been noticed.

Given that coronary heart disease alone is the number one cause of deaths in the US (647,457 in 2017), the UK (170,000 a year), Australia (18,500 in 2017) and Spain (122,466 in 2017), such significant drop in patients seeking help can mean tens of thousands of preventable deaths in these few countries alone.

And part of the responsibility of this phenomenon has to be laid at the door of the lockdown propaganda. Which in many countries have been very strict and involving in emotional blackmail.

The coronavirus hot spot that is the Lake District

But now in light of the new information, a discussion should at least start to be had about the extent of the lockdown and whether the weighing up of risks of the coronavirus versus consequences of the shutdown need to be recalibrated. Or whether locking down, instead of controlled infection to achieve herd immunity is the more preferable long term solution. But instead, even bringing up the topic of opening up the economy again will invite accusations of being cavalier with the lives of the vulnerable. 

The reaction of the police has also bordered on the fascistic, showing every sign of willing to go above and beyond to impose ridiculous and nonsensical laws. A poll conducted in early April show a third of Britons think that the police are overzealous in imposing the lockdown. 

For instance, what is the sense of not allowing people to sit in the park while being distanced from others? Especially with new research suggesting that there is possibly a link between vitamin D deficiency and risk of coronavirus. 

UK police using drones and publicly shaming people for walking their dog

Or the recent case in Texas, where a woman who opened her salon in spite of lockdown laws because she and her employees didn't have money to feed their children. She was arrested, fined $7,000 and faced a week in jail. This is in a state where simultaneously 1,000 criminals are freed from prison to ease crowding. Or in California, where 7 high-risk sex offenders with histories of child molestation and violence are ordered to be freed by the courts, just as the state criminalizes going to the beach. These cases shouldn't fill anyone with confidence in the judgement of the police or the courts as they fumble with the new found power given to them haphazardly during the pandemic.

One might be well disposed to ask why is it that people who wish to work to earn a living and feed their children or simply enjoy some sunlight and open space are treated as criminals and face jail whereas actual criminals are taken out of prison to protect them? And those asking this obvious question might also point to the strange way that compassion is distributed by the law in this most straining of times. 

As many people throughout history have warned us, the willingness of any institution to relinquish power is very small. Examples such as the Roman general Cincinnatus, who freely gave up complete power over the state given to him in a time of emergency after saving the empire, is touted as a rare and exemplary model of civic virtue.

Whereas on the flip side, the enticement to abuse power is great.  The famous Stanford Prison Experiment illustrates this clearly. As Benjamin Franklin said, those who would give up liberty for temporary safety deserve neither. And this points to a massive latent danger that many are willing to ignore, which is that of authoritarian government overreaching their powers with the excuse of a crisis. But that’s too big a topic to cover here.

Nevertheless, the multitude of protests in the US, Germany, India and other places is again a symptom of the lockdown. While the leftist media like to portray these protesters as ignorant, selfish or even racist, the fact is that for many lower middle class people, the lockdown has reached a point where they have to decide whether to starve or to risk the coronavirus and go to work.  Underlying all this is the important point that people who are used to genuine liberty do not appreciate the government encroaching on their rights in the guise of the caring step mother, especially when they are compelling by force.

This is especially hard when those who impose the lockdown on citizens behave as if the imposition is only for the proletariat. Like Chicago Mayor Lori Lighfoot who mandated lockdown but got herself a haircut even though no one else is allowed to visit the salon.  Or CNN's Chris Cuomo who pretended to emerge from isolation after being diagnosed with coronavirus but who had in fact been spotted outdoors, despite social-distance guidelines put in place by his brother, the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Chris Cuomo had the temerity to threaten a cyclist who challenged his group outing, when he should have been isolating, having being diagnosed with the coronavirus. Or Neil Ferguson, the scientist and government advisor whose dire and clearly wildly exaggerated prediction of hundreds of thousands of deaths helped prompt the UK to enter lockdown. He was recently found allowing his married lover to visit his home multiple times, disregarding his own advice and the government's laws. 

Ferguson, who predicted half a million deaths, did not hesitate to break the law and arrange booty-calls with a married owman

When such arrogant, sanctimonious hypocrites try to impose house arrest on entire societies, while the police forces, drunk with power, behave in such unconsidered and draconian means, is it little wonder why people are inflammed? Lenin, who is wrong about a lot, nevertheless did have a good and terse definition of a revolutionary situation. He postulated that a revolution can occur when things cannot go on the way they are, and the people do not wish for it to go on the way they are. Both of these conditions seem to be fulfilling themselves. 

So while many of us are under house arrest by governments too nervous or zealous or power mad, I hope the information here will bring you a sense of reassurance. But also a sense of willingness to open up the conversation and to demand that those in power to think more deeply and broadly about the complex situation, rather than simply being nagging parents with a police force. This epidemic will not be the last one, and I only hope that when the next one inevitably hit, society will not behave as if it is the first ever pandemic all over again.