The Best It Can Get.

As we look back over the two years of this pandemic we gain some insight, though as people in positions of responsibility like to lament ‘it is still too early to tell’. Or is it? The entire debacle from start to finish can be broken down into chapters, and just like a book the twists and turns that took place on a global scale made the story quite compelling, but where does it end? Or has it already slipped away in the night, like a meandering, forest dwelling loner?

The best scenario that we could probably hope for, would be a highly contagious, and prevalent week form of the virus which prepares the immune system (in the majority of cases) for any additional and possibly more lethal versions of first the virus, and ultimately the disease(s) it may cause. This would be the quickest, most effective, most economic, and least damaging path through this situation. Currently we have a few vaccines which give the human immune system a heads up on what may lay ahead, but science can rarely produce what nature can. The vaccines, I am sure have helped to a large degree, but with the approach lacking a 'preparation mutation’ it leaves us in the icy grip of a failure catalog. This failure catalog has many entries, from the short term there is the closing of businesses, the lack of travel and the stranding of people around the world, who cannot afford to circumvent the system like some 'chosen few’. With the lock-downs came anxiety, and depression to minds that had never been touched by the black dog. Care homes were filled with infected people, driven out of hospitals to make way for more Trojan horses, whom in turn were sent to care homes, as though they had a job to finish. This for me will be the underlining failure above all, as it is a needless failure, the powers that be are guilty in that case of gross negligence, how else can we accept that these decisions could have been made, if they were not made badly?

We knew from the start that this virus had the potential to infect anyone, we learned quickly that the disease that it caused was on average, markedly worse for the elderly and those with underlying health problems. Still, people were shifted from hospitals (or disease farms) to take up residency with those most vulnerable without being cleared first. It harks back to the illogical inadequacy of blood screening of the 1980’s, when blood plasma was imported from US convicts to the UK. Most of this blood matter was not screened for hepatitis and latterly HIV. These are the kinds of historical, needless mistakes that resonate in today’s practice. 'Lessons must be learnt’ comes the unimaginative rhetoric, but in reality they are often not.

Also included in the failure catalog (if you will indulge my slight return) is the lateral flow test, not for its inaccuracy as 70%ish seems better than nothing, but for the future generations that will be fishing billions of these things out of the oceans. Along with all the other paraphernalia included in conducting a screening, and a testing on each.

Our greatest clinicians, chemists, doctors, nurses, laboratory staff, virologists, epidemiologists, et all, have been up to their bow ties in it over these last two years. The set back to our global medicinal progress is immeasurable, as their expertise has been wrapped up in this primary threat. The backlog of patients requiring treatment for existing conditions, has also claimed many lives, as these cases were pushed back to make way.

There is enough from anyone country on this topic to fill a volume of novels, let alone approaching the subject on an earth wide scale. We (I am sure) will try to cover as much of this as we can, as succinctly as we can, when the podcast goes out.

Ultimately, if this is as bad as it gets, it could have been far worse. For those who have lost loved ones directly or indirectly due to the rise of this pandemic, our hearts go out to you.

It looks as though this coronavirus is here to stay, and will mutate itself evermore, similar to influenza, in which case the best we can hope for is fewer fatalities, and for most, cold like symptoms.

We are also going to require fast actions by those in power, tougher decisions, better insight, and most importantly though seemingly least likely, common sense.

If there were to be a new viral pandemic to hit this planet over the next few years, I can only hope that it will be dealt with, with 'lessons learned’, said not as rhetoric or with irony, but in the very literal and meaningful sense. That, though not perfect, is our best human response to any crisis, knowledge is the foundation of science and reason, and they are our best tools to negate any problem.

That for the future, is… The best it can get.