Why there are no good solutions to COVID-19
“Chinese scientists say the novel coronavirus will not be eradicated, adding to a growing consensus around the world that the pathogen will likely return in waves like the flu.
It’s unlikely the new virus will disappear the way its close cousin SARS did 17 years ago, as it infects some people without causing obvious symptoms like fever. This group of so-called asymptomatic carriers makes it hard to fully contain transmission as they can spread the virus undetected, a group of Chinese viral and medical researchers told reporters in Beijing at a briefing Monday.
With SARS, those infected became seriously ill. Once they were quarantined from others, the virus stopped spreading. In contrast, China is still finding dozens of asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus every day despite bringing its epidemic under control.”
“Now is an especially interesting time to keep an eye on what happens as many countries in Europe, including Sweden’s Nordic neighbors, begin to ease restrictions themselves. Swedish authorities seem to have accepted that infections and deaths would inevitably climb at a certain rate, so the numbers here look much worse than in neighboring countries. Having avoided wider infections up to now, will countries like Denmark and Norway soon see a surge in cases when they try to open up?
Will Swedes, having been infected more widely at a reasonably controlled pace, now be better off than everyone else as we attempt to restart economic activity? Or could it be that things take a different turn, with Swedes suddenly seeing case numbers jump and a lockdown imposed, just as everyone else is beginning to emerge? All are questions with ramifications for the entire world”; there’s just simply no good solutions to COVID-19.
“World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley has warned that in addition to the threat posed by COVID-19, the world faces “multiple famines of biblical proportions” that could result in 300,000 deaths per day — a “hunger pandemic”…
Entitled “Protection of civilians from conflict-induced hunger”, [his] briefing coincided with the release of the Global Report on Food Crises 2020.
The report highlights 55 countries where 135 million people face crisis-level food insecurity — and that is without counting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response to which creates an “excruciating trade-off between saving lives or livelihoods or, in a worst-case scenario, saving people from the coronavirus to have them die from hunger.”
Citing research from WFP, Beasley said that as the virus spreads, “an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.”…
Chief among worries are countries across Africa and the Middle East — with shutdowns exacerbating poverty, more people are expected to die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself, the Global Food Crises Report suggests. In countries such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Zimbabwe, “national health systems are already overstretched, with an alarming dearth of equipment, medicines and trained staff”.
These are among nine countries that account more than 40 percent of stunted children, the report says. Beasley echoed its alarm. “1.6 billion children and young people are currently out of school due to lockdown closures,” he said. “Nearly 370 million children are missing out on nutritious school meals — you can only imagine when children don’t get the nutrition they need their immunity goes down.”
Indeed, the “African economies’ interconnectedness with the rest of the world is vital to their survival during the pandemic, and to their eventual recovery and growth… Unnecessary export restrictions on food, medical equipment and essential drugs can have far-reaching consequences for the multilateral trading system and the global economy.
Such measures will not only impede progress in managing the current crisis, but also compromise African countries’ longer-term efforts to tackle poverty and improve living standards… African countries, for their part, should remove tariffs and simplify customs clearance procedures for imports of essential drugs and equipment.”
With this in mind, perhaps the best solution of the worst lot of solutions, is the Swedish model after all. Don’t take my word for it, the “World Health Organization lauded Sweden as a “model” for battling the coronavirus as countries lift lockdowns — after the nation controversially refused restrictions.
Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, said Wednesday there are “lessons to be learned” from the Scandinavian nation, which has largely relied on citizens to self-regulate.”