This written on my 49th day of home isolation….and it’s getting a little tiresome. As coronavirus cases pass the 3 million mark I wanted to look at what has happened up to this point before it is all lost in the mist of time.
Firstly some terminology:
- Coronavirus – a family of viruses that includes…
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – a specific virus that causes…
- COVID-19 – an infectious disease
For the most part, the world has decided to call the whole thing “coronavirus”.
As I write there are 3,139,471 confirmed cases and 218,024 deaths in more than 190 countries around the world, although in both cases the actual numbers are much higher thanks to the limited testing being done and the way that the majority of data is only gathered from hospitals. In the just over a million cases that have been closed (had a clear and final outcome) 81% survived and 19% died. In the nearly 2 million active cases, 97% have mild symptoms and only 3% or serious or critical. The striking difference between 3% and 19% is typical of how confusing the data is around this pandemic. If I catch COVID-19, is there only a 3% chance it will be serious, or is there a 19% chance I will die?
From what we know so far, sometime in December a new disease, COVID-19, was born. Early cases centred on the city of Wuhan in Hubei province which is kind of in the middle of China – 850km to the left of Shanghai, 1,120km south of Beijing and roughly the same distance north of Hong Kong. Wuhan has a population of around 20 million, double the size of London or New York and ten times the size of Warsaw.
How it started is not yet clear but there is a strong probability it jumped from wildlife to humans through the consumption of bat balti, pangolin pie or civet ceviche, all of which, we are led to believe, are available in Wuhan and all of which host coronaviruses that are more than 95% similar to the one causing all the trouble. A very high percentage of early cases centered around a “wet market” in Wuhan. Hard to say whether the wild animal to human transfer happened there or if it happened elsewhere and was then transferred to the market. I suppose I should also mention here the conspiracy theory that the virus was manufactured in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and accidentally released to the public. This theory is widely thought to be exceedingly unlikely.
Whilst SARS-CoV-2 is something new, we can’t say it is unprecendented. In 2002-04 the SARS outbreak bore many similarities to COVID-19. It was born in China, bats and civets were involved, the symptoms, complications and prevention were very similar, it was caused by a coronavirus, young people did better than old and women fared better than men. However, there were only 8,000 cases worldwide (7,428 in China, Hong Kong & Taiwan) and 774 deaths (721 in C, HK & T) so one assumes it was far less infectious.
Also, from 2012 on we have the example of MERS. Another coronavirus centered this time on the Middle East and South Korea. Bats are mentioned once more but also camels – a bat bit a camel, a guy kissed the camel…bingo. A total of 2,519 cases of MERS have been identified so far with 866 dead, a very high death rate of over 30% compared to SARS at just under 10%.
Anyway, back to how COVID-19 rolled out after its birth in late 2019. This is a list of some of the milestones;
- Nov 17, 2019 – first COVID-19 case (unrecognised at the time)
- Dec 31, 2019 – China informs WHO about pneumonia cases in Wuhan with an unknown cause
- Jan 1, 2020 – Huanan wet market closed
- Jan 7 – cause identified as a new coronavirus
- Jan 9 – first death
- Jan 12 – China shares genetic sequence of new virus
- Jan 20 – first case in the USA
- Jan 21 – WHO confirms human-human transmission
- Jan 23 – Wuhan and other Chinese cities locking down
- Jan 25 – France confirms three cases, the first in Europe
- Jan 30 – WHO declares this a public health emergency of international concern
- Jan 31 – first confirmed cases in Italy (Chinese tourists and an Italian returned from China). Also in Spain (German tourist). Also the UK (Chinese tourists) [Question -is this not too much of a coincidence?]
- Feb 2 – global cases 17,386 (17,205 in China) and 362 deaths
- Feb 11 – over 1,000 deaths
- Feb 25 – US CDC says “not a matter of if, but when & it might be bad”
- Feb 26 – first time there are more new cases outside China than inside. European Commission asks countries to check their pandemic plans…derrr
- March 4 – first confirmed case in Poland
- March 7 – over 100,000 cases
- March 8 – over 100 countries
- March 11 – WHO declares a pandemic “We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction”
- March 13 – Europe is now the epicentre of the pandemic
- March 19 – Cases surpass 200,000 globally. It took over three months to reach the first 100,000 confirmed cases and just 12 days to reach the next 100,000.
- March 22 – ……and only three days for the next 100,000
- March 24 – …….and only two days for the next 100,000 (you get the gist)
- March 27 – Boris Johnson tests positive. “I was at a hospital where there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody,’ he boasted on March 3rd.
- April 2 – more than 1 million cases globally
- April 6 – Boris Johnson put in intensive care in hospital. Almost 90% of students globally are affected by school closures — over 1.5 billion children and young people.
- April 8 – Wuhan lockdown is lifted
- April 10 – over 100,000 deaths
- April 11 – The United States records 2,108 deaths in one day — the highest death rate recorded for any country during the pandemic.
- April 14 – Trump says he is cutting off funding of the WHO. The latest in his attempts to blame someone else.
- April 15 – number of cases goes past 2 million
- April 24 – US death toll passes 50,000
- April 25 – global death toll passes 200,000
- April 27 – more than 3 million global cases. Boris Johnston is back to work.
By comparison, this was my timeline at work…
- Jan 29 – no travel to China and let us know if you’ve been there
- Feb 27 – Italian offices told to work from home. More strict and regular updates and guidelines being seen. Business events starting to be cancelled.
- Mar 3 – anticipating it to be over by end of Q2 and a sharp rebound later in year
- Mar 4 – must self-isolate for 14 days if you’ve been to Mainland China, Italy, Iran, Hong Kong, South Korea, or Japan for any reason.
- Mar 9 – first heard of a case in Poland, an employee of one of our clients who had visited Italy recently.
- Mar 11 – a lot more information and restrictions. Government close the schools. Can apply for home working if you like.
- Mar 15 – all employees are told to work remotely (except for critical need and a few people to check the post, deliveries, etc)
I’ve been home working / isolating since Thursday, March 12th.
Throughout all this there were some general themes in the background;
- Repatriation – getting people back to their home countries – firstly from China and infected cruise ships and then from wherever they happened to be.
- Locking down – closing borders, banning incoming flights
- Throwing money at it – trillions
- Blaming others – for causing the infection in the first place, for not doing their job, for hijacking equipment orders……etc
- A struggle to get enough protective equipment, ventilators, etc
- Oversued phrases – social distancing, flattening the curve, PPE
- Speculation about a V or U or W shaped recovery, or just a very long recession with no recovery in sight
- Job losses
- Panic buying – especially toilet rolls
- Heroes – health services getting applauded mostly but a few mentions of others
- What numbers can we believe and what other information can be relied upon
- Who has the right response – no-lockdown, fast and hard lockdown, half-assed lockdown – often there were multiple stages
- Promises it will be over within weeks alongside warnings it will last 2 years
- Saving lives versus saving the economy – which is more important?
I’m getting my numbers from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and my timeline from https://www.devex.com/news/covid-19-a-timeline-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak-96396 and elsewhere.
That’s the basics. More commentary in the following posts.
We now bask in the calm that comes after the hurricane that is the Easter feast. We had enough to feed the five thousand but there were just seven people and a week-old baby boy (Kostek).
Twenty Degrees East 