At the time of writing, it’s estimated that the world has over 168,000 cases of the illness and 6,000 deaths. More than 74,000 patients have already recovered. A vast majority of the deaths are of elderly people with underlying health problems. The figures may seem high, but fall into insignificance when compared with those of the annual flu season. In the USA alone, in 2018/19, which wasn’t their worst year, 43 million people were sick from flu-related illnesses and over 61,000 died. Worldwide, between 290,000 and 640,000 patients will die of flu-related illness every year.
Why then, has there been such a dramatic response to Covid-19? Countries don’t close their borders or issue a State of Emergency when there is a flu epidemic; it’s all part of normal life. People die from illnesses and are more likely to do so when they’re old, but we normally only take sensible precautions. With the measures in force to combat Coronavirus, it’s the global economy that will experience most fatalities and that will affect more of the population than the virus. Businesses will fold, individuals will fall into debt and suffer hardship, and it could take longer than the last recession to recover.
When we look back, we’ll know which countries acted for the best and, although I recognise that the decisions aren’t easily made, the lack of global coordination and, especially, the media frenzy which is inciting and scaring the majority of us, will surely be seen, in hindsight, as critical mistakes that shouldn’t have been made.