Wild thoughts amid the novel coronavirus pandemic

A tiny creature turned the human being's world upside down. Despite the recent news shows that it seems the death tolls due to the novel coronavirus became a little bit leveling off in these few days but the worldwide infection, except that in the origin of this pandemic China, still remains at a high level. Some optimistic people think the infection rate will drop when summer draws near. However, these people are just far too optimistic or just with too much wishful thinking. They simply forget that this is a global pandemic meaning that there are infection even in the African countries and tropical countries like Singapore and Thailand where summer is all year around. This coronavirus is just not another SARS which subsided along with the warm weather. Unfortunately the forecast made by medical experts as I mentioned in my post Did we go too far? a month ago seems becoming more and more evidenced.

In the same post I also had query that the lockdown, especially nationwide, is an appropriate measure in dealing with the outbreak because such handling is devastating in economy for those countries which practice it. Apparently as what I put it a herd behaviour is proven to be a brainless mimicking now. Despite the U.S. has the highest death tolls and infections so it became the worst hit country yet it only implements patchwork lockdown and people should note that the U.S. is also a vast country and with strong economy like China who can withstand the harsh economic consequences of the lockdown. Smaller nations are just committing economic suicide when they blindly mimic such controversial measure.

In fact as strong as they are yet China has withdrawn the lockdown on her Hubei province already and Trump is looking forward eagerly to resuming the nation in normal in order to keep their economy engine running. When we consider seriously the forecast that made by the medical experts that this coronavirus will most likely with us for good and in the meantime vaccine is not going to be available in this 1-2 years time that we know that locking down in the hope to buy time to stop the spreading is virtually impractical.

Locking down in the short run can really stop the spreading within the locked area because social contact is cut completely but at one hand lockdown is just impossible to be permanent so spreading will just resume as soon as lockdown is lifted as long as the virus still exists in that area. On the other hand, the whole world now is living in a global village so as long as this virus exists in one corner of the world then it will just spread to the other parts of the world even if a specific nation has successfully eliminated this virus in its soil. The effort and economic loss for the lockdown just went in vain.

The U.K. once considered tackling measure, herd immunity, was under big attack and Boris Johnson also became a laughing stock when he himself contracted the disease as well. This idea looks outrageous in the first glance because it puts the lives of the whole nation under serious test. Many weak and vulnerable people could die if not treated properly and timely. So the point is not the idea of herd immunity but the execution of this idea. The key point is an organized fashion of herd infection that will not flood the public health system to crash. Man-made vaccine takes at least 4-5 years to be developed but the antibody can be generated one week after the infection. An organized fashion of herd infection within the capacity of the public health system not only let the community generate antibody in the quickest time but also keep the patients in good looking-after condition to minimize the death toll due to complication. Let alone the salvation on the economic impasse arising from the lockdown.

Whether lockdown is effective in combating the spreading is still controversial and only time can tell. One thing for sure is that many people around the world have already lost their jobs or at least some of their income. When the outbreak persists as well as the lockdown then there will be even more people than is now in serious financial hit. They do not die from the disease but just from financial unwell.

Herd immunity is outrageous? In extraordinary time people need thinking out-of-the-box.