Herd instinct

Like so many of the people peddling home remedies for Covid-19 on the Web, I am not medically qualified. Unlike them, I am ready to admit the fact. However, having lived with seasonal (and sometimes year-round) chest infections for as long as I can remember, and being an avid reader of popular science articles in reputable sources, I believe I can offer some relevant observations.

I have always understood the term "herd immunity" to mean "the reduction of infection or disease in the unimmunised segment as a result of immunising a proportion of the population". So one can virtually eliminate a disease or particular strain of one from a population by mass immunisation. Prime minister Johnson and his medical advisers have assumed a broader definition of the term. It seems that in the unavoidable absence of a vaccine, they are prepared to let the infection burn itself out, intervening only to the extent of treating life-threatening instances of infection and (belatedly and only partially) reducing physical contacts. As I understand it, they are assuming that those who catch Covid-19 and survive (and so far it has had only mild effects on healthy people) will naturally acquire immunity to infection in any future exposure to the virus. Thus there will be a herd effect without any need for the authorities to take further action.

What worries me is that the virus will not be eliminated, but go underground, as it were. We have already seen that children can harbour Covid-19 without exhibiting any symptoms. There have been a couple of cases of patients being given the all-clear only for a subsequent test to show that the virus had merely been "lying low" when the reassuring test had been taken. In my young days, several childhood viral infections were treated as a nuisance to be got over quickly, so prevalent were they. The dangers of measles had begun to be recognised, but parents tended to be a bit blasé about German measles (rubella) and chicken-pox, which appeared to be mild in their effects. Only later was the danger to unborn children from rubella recognised. It was also discovered that the herpes virus which causes chicken-pox can linger quiescent in the body for years, erupting in later life as the painful shingles. My concern is that the UK will become a reservoir of attenuated strains of this particular corona virus, which will flare up in the future as a result of mutation or change in the environment. Our nation may become a hostile environment to immigrants, but not as the Tories intended.

PS: The school shutdown in the home countries has led to questions about the future of those in their last year of GCSE courses whose exams have been cancelled, and whose GCSE grades will be assigned on the basis of assessment. A fairer course of action, one which would allow potential employers and universities to compare like with like, would be to allow those pupils to return to complete their year and take their exams. after the epidemic has played itself out. To ease the timetable and physical congestion which would otherwise occur, the opportunity could be taken to reduce the compulsory minimum school leaving age by a year. It is something I have been advocating for some time, but it would not have been politically acceptable in normal times. There would have been strong resistance from teaching unions, but individual teachers would welcome the chance to release into the outside world youngsters who are not confident of getting good exam results and cannot see why they are wasting their time in the classroom when they could be getting their feet on the employment ladder.