First, if anyone is still thinking this is “just flu”, the fact is coronavirus spreads very rapidly and requires a high degree of hospitalisation. The result is that if unchecked (as is the case in the UK at the moment), the number of cases will grow exponentially by as much as 10 fold in a week, meaning that perhaps 10% of the population may need to be in hospital at its peak. There just won’t be enough high intensity life saving equipment, or medical staff to operate them to save everyone who could be saved.

 Imminent Alert

I am now anticipating our first deaths to start in the UK in the next week and in Scotland within a fortnight (purely based on smaller population). The reason for this as is follows.

As you may know people on some cruise ships were quarantined with the virus. What was unusual about these was the low death rate of 0.6% compared to the Chinese rate of 2%. I had hoped this was better medical care, suggesting that the 2% rate could be reduced.

But as you may also know S.Korea has had anoutbreak with 13 deaths and are now undertaking a massive proactive testing regime. This is unlike other countries who test where there are symptoms. And so far S.Korea have found 1766 people with the virus. This gives a death rate of 0.7%. It might seem good that the death rate appears to be lower after systematic testing, however that’s only because cases that were being missed have shown up. WHEN WE SEARCH FOR PEOPLE rather than waiting for them to turn up, for each person who dies there seems to be about 140 infected people. That is far lower than has been found by the “test when there’s symptoms” approach so far adopted.

To explain why this is so concerning, take Iran. Here, where there have been 22 deaths, based on S.Korea I would estimate there are about 3000 infected people. It is clearly out of control there as they are only reporting having found 141 people (indeed the death count is also suspect). Likewise Italy has had 12 deaths, suggesting 1700 cases, but they are only reporting 455.

Based on the number of reported deaths (44 outside China, the cruise ships & S.Korea), I estimate there are 6000 people in the rest of the world who have the virus of which only 1400 have been discovered. In other wise, for every Coronavirus case that has been recorded there are likely 3 other people who have not been found (probably due to the mild symptoms).

It’s difficult to say what this means in the UK because each country has different connectivity with those where the virus has been found. But there is no reason to believe there will be fewer cases in the UK than average.

If 3 “wild” to 1 “captive” cases is a typical ratio which applies to the UK then that suggests for the 15 cases identified there are perhaps 45 people in the UK with the virus who are just wondering around. Based on relative population that suggests around 5 in Scotland.

Given that the first sign of an outbreak seems to be when people start dying (as deaths are difficult to ignore), if there are ~140 cases for each death, given unchecked growth, that suggests that “on average” a country like the UK is likely to see its first death in the next 7 days and one the size of Scotland in the next fortnight. By end of March we could be seeing 5000 people in hospital and 1000 deaths in UK. 

The current UK response (have the SNP responded?) has been pretty minimal and for example, I’ve seen no evidence of a massive increase in acute beds nor staff to man them, nor any details of quarantine. And e.g. their “ask” to self-quarantine was a joke given that many people could not afford to take a fortnight off work.

So, I suggest that the virus is likely to spread in the UK almost as quickly as it did in China with the government constantly taking measures that are far too little too late and as I predicted three weeks ago, our health services will be swamped with cases.

The only thing that may prevent that is warmer/drier weather – or the luck of the dice – it may “never happen here” (which I suggest is the current plan).

Mike Haseler