Coronavirus, lessons that should hopefully be learned.

In 2003 we got a taste of what a new, deadly strain of Coronavirus could do to us. Humans have battled with Coronavirus strains and Rhinovirus strains for as long as we've been a species on Earth. Here was essentially a common Cold virus that carried the punch of a Flu. People feared it greatly. Some people worked towards a cure while others resorted to isolation. Ultimately it was called out early enough to essentially starve out after only a relatively small percentage of the population being exposed to it. Victory was declared and we got on with our lives.

But what did we actually win? Did we find the cure or vaccine for it and protect the bulk of the herd? No. The virus petered out, and so too did the funding and drive towards developing a vaccine. The monster went back into the closet after we turned on the light, and there was no sign of it around.

Since that time we've battled two new Flu strains, another age-old enemy that pops up every year. We study and vaccinate against this beast regularly and it still manages to kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people each and every year. The H5N1 "Bird Flu" happened two years after SARS. We were still on fairly high alert, but this strain largely fizzled out. The H1N1 "Swine Flu" in 2009 was a much bigger deal, but it came while we were still reeling from the GFC. CDC estimates for the 2009 outbreak put the # of deaths at anywhere from 150,000 to 450,000 people.

When it comes to viruses and our ability to fight them, we rely on only one thing, our immune system, and the immune systems of the people around us. (The "Herd Immunity") With the common varieties of Coronavirus, we get sick, but they are largely non-threatening. These viruses have gone through countless mutations over the years and we don't even bother trying to develop vaccines or cures for the common cold. There is simply no justified need for it. A lot of this will have to do with how our bodies produce, maintain, and "record" antibodies for later use.Studies in flu vaccines have shown that in some cases, when we get a vaccine for a particular strain of virus, our bodies can start producing antibodies for other flu strains that weren't part of the vaccination. Vaccines targeting one strain can also have an impact on the immune response to exposure to a different strain. It won't be 100% effective, but it can still help shorten the response and recovery time. This is one reason doctors encourage the use of flu shots even though the few strains chosen out of the possible hundreds out in the wild are little more that a wet finger in the air guess.

Which brings us to COVID-19 / SARS-2.  What's changed all that much? Well, like SARS (2003) this virus is a Coronavirus which is highly contagious and knows a few back doors to make itself an unwelcome guest in human hosts. It spreads like a Cold and punches like a Flu. This time around the ground zero was one of the largest cities in China during the middle of the Northern Flu season in the lead up to Chinese New Years where much of the population travels across the country and overseas family members fly home. SARS began in a more rural setting at the start of the Northern winter.

The biggest mistake I believe we made with SARS was abandoning the vaccine. I would love to see a study done on COVID-19's effect on past SARS survivors, those people that contracted SARS and developed antibodies. I would not be at all surprised if it found that SARS survivors, even though antibodies would likely be dormant by now, had a much improved response to the SARS-2 virus infection. Had we followed through and developed a SARS vaccine, or better controlled the spread of the disease to allow a larger segment of our population to safely develop antibodies, would this new variant have torn through the population with such devastating effect?

The lessons I believe we need to learn from this, and past virus outbreaks would be:

- The only thing that protects us is our immune system. Starving a virus out back into the closet is a false victory. Either we need to follow through with a vaccine or ensure that a good percentage of the world population has a chance to develop antibodies. China may serve as an example that a virus can be successfully starved, but it will have to be forever vigilant for new outbreaks. When visitors start returning and risk bringing the virus back into the country, aftershocks of lock-downs will undoubtedly occur to contain it especially if the general population cannot be vaccinated.

- Worldwide we have become complacent with health care. Beds per 1000 people have been steadily dropping, and while on average they may seem not that alarming, the figures for some of our more populous cities are extremely inadequate. Viral outbreaks in city centres will burn like wildfires, overwhelming local hospitals. You cannot blame medical advisors talking up the risks and worst case scenarios to try and direct the fear into support to claw back spending cuts they have faced through the "good years".

- Spare a thought for your local businesses that, for no fault of their own, are being starved of business from being abandoned by customers that have absolutely nothing to fear from them. When the panic passes and life returns back to a relative normal, it would be a shame to see some of your past favorite eateries and such boarded up.

and finally...

- We need to resist the urge to try and track the spread of a virus through mediums like social media. The fear and panic caused by unverified sources leads people to act irrationally and not trust the people that have been entrusted to protect them. Many people who should not have need to fear this virus end up acting in a manner that increases the risks not only to themselves, but others around them. The premature findings, the inaccurate conclusions & opinions derived from them, and the downright dangerous "fake news" can be as convincing and prominently placed on the Internet as the advice from official voices. People, even official sources of information draw up all kinds of stupid conclusions, such as comparing estimated projections for flu cases against case figures for this new virus, citing anywhere from 3% to 5%+ mortality rate and then projecting that across entire populations. It is complete fear-mongering hogs-wallow. To project across a population you need to take an unaffected sample and put them in an environment presenting a typical exposure to the virus. From that there will be people that get sick, and some that don't. Some of the sick will need medical attention, others won't. Some that need medical attention may even die. From those figures you can extrapolate out to a population for a given age group. Figures for SARS-2 exposure are biased heavily due to a lack of reliable testing. The majority of initial cases were only confirmed once they were essentially at a stage that was requiring hospitalization. The number of cases out there that are walking around with what will pass with little more than an itchy throat is a complete unknown. If you were to project the estimated hospitalizations for H1N1-2009 against deaths to be more in-line with the case counts of COVID-19, the mortality rate for H1N1 would have been ~15%.

Getting information out to people is a good thing, but like medicine, too much is usually a very effective poison. Elements of the public have gone "12 Monkeys" over the spread of this Coronavirus. Many have watched convincing movies like "Outbreak" or "Contagion". Others have played games like "Plague Inc." and know releasing a benign, but contagious virus out of China then waiting to ramp up the lethal mutations is a grimly satisfying way to "win" the game by eradicating the Human population. They form parallels with what they see on "news" sites which are little more these days than accumulators of Tweets. People will scream at the idea of comparing COVID-19 with a flu, it's so much worse, cities don't get shut down for the flu. Take the last H1N1 outbreak in 2009. The difference between 2009 and today (2020) is that we weren't watching the spread anywhere nearly as closely, nor what countries were specifically trying to do to contain it. H1N1-2009 killed anywhere from 150,000 to 450,000 people. COVID-2019 has killed 7000 in 3 months. Some might highlight the extensive efforts countries like China have undertaken to contain the virus, and how much higher the death toll might have been if left to run it's course. H1N1 killed so many more people even *with* a vaccine eventually available. Hindsight will judge how effective measures like those used in China were in minimizing, or maximizing the damage of this virus. On the one hand they shone a light on the virus early and looked to restrict travel. On the other hand they locked down cities with inadequate local medical care and prevented patients, affected by the virus or otherwise, to be transferred to other cities that had capacity to care for them. The overloaded hospitals meant many people were left with no option other than to queue up at hospitals each day, cross-exposing each other, then bringing the virus home to their extended families. Patients with unrelated medical issues needing attention get caught in the queues, and without treatment they die. Pictures of those deaths in the hallways of hospitals then are automatically counted against the virus by popular opinion, fueling the panic.

Maybe we scare this virus back into the closet, maybe we develop a vaccine. At some point life will start returning to a relative normal, but I can guarantee we will face another threat from a virus down the road. Hopefully we can learn something from this incident to not allow ourselves to get complacent with how we face a threat, and take the opportunity to be better prepared to face it without resorting to such drastic and questionable actions due to panic.