Charles Walker MP, who clearly feels that Harold Shipman was misunderstood, claims that the threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been overplayed. “The fact is people in their 80s and 90s die”. he told the Radio 4 Today audience,“we just can’t save every life, because the cost to the living is too high.”
Declaration of interest: I am only a few years short of the median age of death from Covid-19, 82.4. I make no special claims for myself, but I look around and see men and women of my generation still making great contributions to the public good. Besides, we tend to forget the ordinary people, the much-loved grannies and granddads in their 70s and 80s (note that word "median") who, apart from a depressed immune system, are in good health, playing a full part in family life.
Further, it is not only old people who die as a result of this virus. They are most at risk from casual infection, but adults in the prime of life can fall victim if they are exposed often enough and for long enough. The prime example is Dr Li, the Wuhan optician who first blew the whistle on the virus. He was only 34 when he died. We have seen the same pattern in our NHS and care services, with BAME workers most at risk. The median age here seems to be 54. Also at risk were drivers of one-man-operated buses. It seems to me that closing bars and restaurants protects the staff rather than the patrons; closing schools aids the teachers rather than the pupils.
SARS-CoV-2 is not like a dose of the 'flu. It is more lethal - possibly ten times more so. Moreover, those who survive infection, even if they do not require hospital treatment, may suffer long-term effects. Breathlessness, fatigue, mental disturbance and kidney and liver function impairment are among reported symptoms even when all trace of the live virus has gone. What is more, it is not yet obvious which patients will incur what after-effects and who will be apparently unaffected. Dr Adam Rutherford, a fit 45-year-old workaholic until the virus struck in March, shared his woes in a recent Radio 4 documentary.
We still do not know enough about this virus to adopt the laissez-faire attitude of Charles Walker and his like-minded friends. That is not to approve of the crude centrally-directed methods of the government in Westminster, still not cognisant enough of local interests and knowledge, but they are still preferable to continuing to let the virus rip.
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And would one want ones elderly relative to leave this world like this? A group of Newcastle University students interviewed by Channel 4 News today displayed a sensible knowledge of what was required of them to avoid spreading the virus. As one lad explained, he had seen the pain his mother had gone through with the disease and did not want to see anyone else suffer the same way.
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