This isn’t just flu – Britain must take this virus seriously

The traditional stiff upper lip is no way to deal with a contagion that is already a global pandemic

Public libraries are putting away children’s toys. Supermarkets are running low on loo paper. Everywhere, you see the furtive rubbing of hands that indicates the breaking out of sanitising gel (while stocks last). In a somewhat unexpected development, sales of Corona beer have fallen through the floor.

Yet still, for the most part, we remain nonchalant. Two American friends visiting recently were astonished to find Londoners going about their business largely as normal. There is even a faint air of contempt here for the drastic measures being taken in some parts of the world. China is welding people into apartment buildings, Italy is shutting its schools and Switzerland is cancelling luxury watch conferences, but we Brits know how to take on a little dose of the flu without so much hoo-ha! This air of confidence is misplaced.

There is still a huge amount we do not know about this new virus. Even the death rate is just an estimate. Taking only confirmed cases – recoveries versus deaths – results in a death rate close to 6 per cent. But scientists are pretty sure that there must be hundreds of thousands of “invisible” cases with symptoms so mild that the carrier hasn’t been tested. That is how they get to their best guess death rate of 1 per cent.

The chances are that the real rate could be lower still. The NHS is better prepared than China’s health system was when this started, not least because it is better funded and we have had time to get ready. But the risk for the elderly is still uncomfortably high. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, did not manage to sound entirely reassuring when he was asked to calm fears among old people and replied: “The great majority of people will survive this.” By which he means around 85 per cent, from the data so far.

There is also a question mark around smokers. One theory is that the higher death rate for men and the deaths among young, seemingly fit health workers in China is due to smoking, but there is no data either way. Brits, fortunately, smoke less than the Chinese.

Unfortunately, efforts at containment are hitting an intractable problem. Of the 163 cases identified at the time of writing (of about 20,000 tested) in the UK, at least a dozen simply cannot be traced back to any other known case or foreign travel. In other words, the illness is already spreading undetected. One possibility is that children, who mercifully seem to be less vulnerable to the disease, are none the less getting it and displaying no symptoms, thereby acting as silent spreaders. This is one reason why schools for nearly 300 million children worldwide are now closed.

These other countries who are shutting schools and cancelling conferences are doing so not because they are a bunch of overreacting wimps, but because it may be one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the disease. Over here, UK policymakers are watching attentively to see whether it works and if we ought to do likewise. Whether this hesitation is sensible and proportionate or a historic mistake is not yet clear.

The unspoken truth is that these decisions are ultimately about risk appetite. Scientists can offer advice, but the uncertainties are so great that politicians ultimately have to take decisions about how far to go. The Government appears, so far, to be taking the risk that it is not worth implementing measures that cause enormous disruption, because widespread contagion is ultimately inevitable.

There are some reasons for this approach. We know that the epidemic has slowed down in China, but we have no idea if this is due to its drastic quarantine measures, which have plunged its economy into deep freeze. It seems more likely that China’s supreme effort at contact-tracing, which involves finding and testing everyone who has had intimate contact with virus sufferers, was the key factor in dampening down the virus’s spread. The UK has traced the contacts of confirmed patients as much as it can so far.

Disruption also has other costs.

There have been Chinese cases reported of people in need of urgent medical care for other illnesses but finding themselves trapped in their houses because of the shutdown. And you cannot keep an economy in lockdown forever. When workers return to factories and children go back to school, contagion may well flare up again. Even if we were to shut down schools now, who is to say the virus would not just come back when they reopened?

The UK’S approach carries its own risks, however. It may turn out that a short, sharp period of disruption now would stop the virus in its tracks and that we are missing a vital chance. It is hard to imagine that this would not be the undisputed policy choice if those at most risk were young children, rather than the elderly.

The virus planning paper released this week estimated that, in a worstcase scenario, 80 per cent of people could ultimately get infected. Such an enormous epidemic is unlikely, but if the virus grows on anything like that scale, the disruption to daily life and the health system will make a few conference cancellations look like a mere prelude.

In Hubei province, in China, for example, where the virus first emerged, there are more than 67,000 confirmed cases. That is equivalent to just 0.1 per cent of the population. Even accounting for the many “invisible” cases that have not been identified, the gap between 0.1 and 80 per cent suggests that scientists think there is a long, long way to go before this thing dies down.

Boris Johnson is keen to put the country at ease. This week, he claimed to have visited a hospital of coronavirus patients and “shook hands with everybody!” But we should be under no illusions. This isn’t just a bad flu season and we do not yet know what it will take to get it even vaguely under control. A stiff upper lip is fine, if that is your thing, but it is time to take this virus seriously.

FOLLOW Juliet Samuel on Twitter @Citysamuel; READ MORE at telegraph. co.uk/opinion

Scientists can offer advice, but the uncertainties are so great that politicians have to take decisions about how far to go

The UK’S approach has its risks. It may be that a short, sharp period of disruption now would stop the virus in its tracks