A fascinating article in The New Yorker from May 2020 showed the issues and hurdles with pre-testing covid-19 drugs. Like the UK money ( lots of it) has been wasted in buying or testing with kits which give false positives. Even distilled water gave a positive reading for covid-19 with one such kit!
The decision to drop the usual pre-testing safety checks with potential covid-19 kits is risky. Carry on the usual safety checks and trials and it can take months before a preparation is deemed fit for use. Hurry the process too fast and labs end up with a test kit that just isn’t reliable. It’s worse to be told you don’t have the virus when you do - false negative - but false positives lead to unnecessary stress and possible hospitalisation and bed obstruction.
Our own world-beating testing system announced with Johnson’s usual bon homie and chronic lack of caution is where, exactly?
The US and the UK have the worst figures for death rates from covid-19. I wonder why. ( I know why and I think it shows how deep our class divides are as well as chaotic laboratory utilisation and lack of urgency.) Merkle’s a scientist and they have the labs and they reacted VERY quickly to covid-19 in Germany. The results and comparisons between the UK and Germany are clear to see.
I won’t be going to the pub on 4th July - tomorrow. In England we are no closer to having a workable test and trace system. Until we know who on the bus, in the queue behind us, or sitting next to us in a hostelry has the virus and is infectious we’re taking huge risks. A friend of the family has waited weeks to see his wife who was in intensive care and only able to blink after ICU interventions. Yes she caught covid-19 from someone coughing over her in a bus queue. Since then she’s been in rehab. She can walk but can barely use her arms. And she’s a good ten years younger than us. After months apart she went home yesterday and was impaired physically and very weary.
If patients survive the virus sedative drugs used while on ventilators can turn recovery into a state of confusion and distress. Survivors can suffer PTSD, anxiety and depression. This is exactly what my husband is suffering from now- completely non covid-19 related. He had three diagnoses requiring surgery over a two month period last year. The surgery was minor but the after effects caused psychosis.
Do I really want to risk his catching covid-19 and risking another bout of mental illness as well as the very real physical damage the virus can create? Of course not!
I’m not neurotic. During my first degree studying plant biology a whole lab where we did our pracs had to be shut down. A Ph.D student had left a petri dish lid slightly off the culture he was growing. Next morning every other experimental culture was killed by the fungus or bacterium he’d let loose, inadvertently. The labs were in lockdown. Viruses, likewise, need a host and they spread fast looking for a victim in which to replicate. They are not landing on me.
I shall continue to keep my social distance and protect my already-suffering husband until we have a test and trace system or a vaccine. Whichever is the sooner. Sitting outside seems fine. But what if - at a pub - a glass has been touched after washing? And I put that glass to my lips? I think the risks are too high.
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