April 15th, 2020 update. People are finally coming to the realization that Covid-19 will not be going away anytime soon and its effects will still be felt into 2021. What people still fail to see is the path that saves the most lives in the short term could turn to years of misery with even more lives lost in the end. How long this virus lasts in each area of the world could very as long as a year depending on the individual government policies in that area.

To date, there is no country that can say they are through the pandemic and returned to normal so we can only use what we currently know and logic to predict what is most likely to happen in the future. Lives and the survival of our economy depend on the decisions we make now. In predicting the future by comparing Covid-19 with other pandemics, it is critical we take into account that this virus is completely different, in that it is far more contagious than anything else we have ever seen.

With this in mind, there are only 3 possibilities that would end the Covid-19 Outbreak:

• The virus could just disappear
• We find a cure
• Enough people become infected and immune to it, that it can no longer spread easily and dies out.

Unlike the seasonal flu that dies out in the heat of summer, Covid-19 has infected even tropical countries making it unlikely to die out and go away with the changing of seasons. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that would indicate any other reason that would cause it to just go away, making the chances of it just disappearing on its own very unlikely.

Researchers have stated: finding, developing, and distributing a cure, if rushed, could be done in an unprecedented amount of time of as little as 2 years. Can we stay in lockdown for 2 years? Keep in mind there is still no cure for SARS that came out in 2003 or Ebola in 2014. Both these viruses were nowhere near as contagious as the unprecedented rate of Covid-19 and were only able to be brought under control through isolation and containment. Isolation and containment have already proved impossible when it comes to Covid-19.

That leaves mass immunity by large numbers of the population contracting and recovering from the virus as the most likely scenario to end the outbreak. As more and more people catch the disease and become immune, the virus from those infected and living on surfaces has a harder and harder time finding someone that has not yet been exposed until eventually dying out.

Evedence of mass immunity working should become evident in the coming months as places with the worst outbreaks so far, like Northern Italy and New York City will be able to start returning to normal while maintaining a low number of new cases. Even if new outside cases are introduced, the immunity level in these places should be high enough to stop another significant outbreak. The higher the percentage of immune people in an area, the less likely the chance of another major outbreak and the lower the number of new cases.

Assuming mass immunity turns out to be the final endgame for this virus, government policies designed to flatten the curve of infection through lockdowns and closures well below what health care systems can handle could prove disastrous. Although it will look like they are winning the fight at first, it would only serve to slow the spread of the virus over years instead of months. Until they reach a high enough percentage of the population that is immune, it will explode every time they try to open things up. In the end, not only will the prolonged chance of exposure to those people most vulnerable end in even more deaths, but the measures necessary to slow the virus, left in place too long will result in total economic collapse.

Regardless of the path we take to fight this virus, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable during this pandemic, developing an accurate test to tell if someone is already immune is vital. By having only immune people have direct contact with the 20 percent of the population shown most vulnerable, it would drastically reduce the chances they get infected and save the most lives. Placing immune health care workers in old age homes would be the single most important factor in keeping the virus out.

Although necessary, the current importance we are placing on testing people for the virus as being a solution to stopping it is highly overrated. The virus is so widespread and contagious that a person that is tested now and does not have it, could easily become infected before they even get their negative test result back. With so little testing being done it offers only limited and misleading data as to how to stop it. We know that about 80% of people that contract Covid-19 have mild symptoms. We know since the start of the pandemic people in this category have been told to go home and self isolate without being tested and we know that unless people have life-threatening symptoms they are afraid to go to the hospital. What we don’t know is the number of people that have been exposed and are now immune. I suspect these numbers are much greater than we think they are. The most important thing we can do to save lives and end the outbreak is to develop a reliable test to tell who is immune.

This virus is relentless, from the infection of the first person in China to shutting down the world in less than 6 months. It creeps into old age homes and gets through PPE, infecting health care workers. Assuming we can hide in our homes until it goes away is to totally underestimate it. Without a cure, areas without a high enough percentage of population immunity are like explosives factories and every contagious person is a match. Even 1 person left infected in the world could set them off.

Dave Lister

listerlogic.com

Note: The above article was sent on April 18, 2020 to the following-

• Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister of Canada)
• Doug Ford (Premier of Ontario)
• CTV News