They laughed at Donald Rumsfeld, but all we have with regard to this Corona Virus is a bunch of known unknowns.
I haven’t changed my mind; I still feel it’s 'too soon to know'. Meanwhile, I’m obeying the rules on the principle that it’s better to be safe than sorry. I’m not doing it to ‘save’ the NHS. I’m with Margaret Ashworth.
We don’t know how long the pandemic will last.
We don’t know what the fatality rate is. (We never can know)
We don’t know how long the incubation period is. Speculations vary - a lot.
We don’t know if survivors have immunity; if they do, we don’t know how long it lasts.
We don’t know of a treatment or a cure.
We don’t know how to make a vaccine.
We don’t know if the remedy is worse than the disease.
We’ll never know if the deaths ‘with’ coronavirus were ‘from’ coronavirus. Even if they weren’t, it’s reasonable to assume that coronavirus hastened or contributed to the death; it’s unknowable.
The scarcity of tests. Unless there was a way of testing every single person in the world, (every day) we can never rely on the accuracy of statistics. Even if more tests become available, a-symptomatic and incubating cases will slip through the net.
As long as the disease is rampant a ‘negative’ result is only as good as the day of the test; presumably, those with immunity can still transmit the virus through touch, maybe not person to person, but from contaminated surface to person (?)
It comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing: once in the body, it tricks cells into replicating itself. For a minority this means a hospital stay or worse. Tom Whipple traces the viral journey
A convincing article by Dr Matt Strauss explains why ventilators aren’t really much help, and may even be harmful (Someone kindly tell Jeremy Bowen)
We haven't found an effective treatment and we haven't so far invented a vaccine. At the moment, it seems we’re truly stuffed.
