Protect the elderly, but let’s see life back to normal for those at low risk

Covid-19 is the worst pandemic I’ve seen in 40 years as a microbiologist. It is not a hoax. It fills ICUs faster than seasonal flu. It is implicated in a million deaths already. So, if it is that bad, why have I signed the Great Barrington Declaration?

I am partly retired and have a comfortable life; I can write, edit photos, take long walks and, selfishly, sit it out. The answer is that, in conscience, I can no longer do so, professionally or as a citizen.

In March, we knew little. A brief lockdown was proportionate, to ready the NHS. Now, though, we know that much infection is very mild and inconsequential.

Among 750 Northumbria University students who were PCR-positive, just 78 had symptoms; in the US, 70,000 students were PCR positive and three hospitalised. The median age of those who have succumbed is 82 years, while life expectancy is 81 years. Fewer than 400 UK residents under 60 without comorbidities have died. For this, we have restricted human interactions and stifled the economy.

A trip to Leicester Square finds closed theatres and empty chairs at empty tables. A 10-day Scottish coastal trek in August found little hotels and pubs trying to restart. Now, their owners and staff are crushed again.

There is something nastier, too. The goodwill of March, when 700,000 volunteered, is replaced by masks that hide smiles or hostility and by posters threatening £6,400 fines. I don’t condone anti-lockdown demonstrations, but I am more disturbed by baton-wielding police deployed against them. It is not the England I love, and I doubt the atmosphere helps anyone’s mental health.

A psychiatrist pal is admitting patients ‘‘tipped over the edge’’; Prof Dalgleish, my co-signatory, has two suicides among collaborators. Further lockdowns might be worth it, if a good vaccine was very close... That’s the bet. But even the furthest advanced vaccine trials extend into next spring and tell little about the longevity of immunity.

Whether vaccines will protect the “immune senescent” frail elderly will remain uncertain. And I have served on enough vaccine-development advisory boards to know the frequent taste of failure. The Government’s ‘‘suppression then vaccine’’ approach is a colossal punt.

Meantime, the damage accumulates. There is no good way out, but the declaration outlines a route that we believe is better, and more humane. So far as possible, life should return to normal for those at low risk and for anyone older who accepts the hazard, which will include me.

The virus will circulate among us, generating herd immunity. As we recover, it will run out of hosts and lose traction. Sweden’s approach resembles this, and the societal damage is far less than here, while the time curve of deaths per million differs little. Hospitals were not overwhelmed and hopefully ours won’t be either; if things get tight, the Nightingale sites can be used.

Effort should then be directed to protecting the vulnerable, principally the elderly. Support could include well-paid live-in staff, rotating at care homes, food deliveries to those alone and the option (not compulsion) of hotels for those living in multi-generational families.

All this is better use of money than recently: the NAO reports £26  billion of Bounce Back loans lost to fraud and failures – that’s £65,000 per care home resident.

Never in history have we handled a pandemic like this. Not the 1889-94 “Russian Flu” (maybe a coronavirus), which killed 135,000 from a population half of today’s; nor in 1918, when we defeated the German army as a far worse epidemic peaked. Future generations will look back aghast.

Some colleagues are cross I have spoken. To them, in conscience and surveying the wreckage, I can only quote Martin Luther: “Here I stand; I can do no other.” That’s why I signed.

Prof David Livermore is a microbiologist from the University of East Anglia. He writes in a personal capacity.