As much as I crave a pint in the pub, this virus is too sobering to risk it

As the virus has rumbled on and on, and on, people have tired of restrictions, tired of caution, and are bored of the scientific and medical realities of Covid-19. In the case of the law-abiding citizenry, this desperation for it all to be over has led to clinging to every word of the Government’s rules, waiting until they are tweaked to allow this or that change in behaviour – then embracing the new rules with gusto, despite the Government’s decisions being based on what might politely be called extremely incomplete information.

ONS figures suggest deaths have stopped falling and the rate of infections is plateauing, and even growing in some areas, just as the latest tranche of restriction-easing rules came into force yesterday with the contentious opening of pubs, restaurants and cinemas.

Dubbed “Super Saturday”, many queried the wisdom of flinging open boozers’ doors on peak drinking day, ready for a populace horrendously deprived of them. The plaintive requests from health chiefs that people not get “plastered” – a state in which they are unlikely to remember virus etiquette – sounded like the wails of a small man just before a tidal wave breaks over him.

Despite having the Government’s blessing, and being desperate – absolutely desperate – for a night in the pub, I confess I stayed away. I am in the increasingly awkward and small group of people who don’t buy for a minute that we can act with anything but extreme caution until a vaccine or effective medicine arrives.

I had held out the hope that, as some breathless reports have suggested, the virus would magically disappear and free me up to relax – socially as well as sexually (dating has also been in a state of suspended animation).

But this was never to be – coronaviruses may not simply “burn out” as the Spanish flu did. It’s pure wishful thinking. The reality, becoming ever more clouded by the day as discipline and consideration frays, has not changed nearly as much as our behaviour suggests it has.

In fact, I couldn’t help but zone into research from the Scripps Institute that talks about a possible mutation in the distinctive S-spike protein of the virus, which researchers believe may have made the European and American strain of Covid-19 (D614) 10 times more infectious than that first identified in China and circulated in Asia (G614).

So rather than less infectious, it suggests the virus had by May become far more adept at community transmission. This is not proven, but it’s not brilliant news for wishful thinkers.

Then there’s testing. With test and trace missing a quarter of the contacts of those who test positive, it can not be said to be working in a reassuring fashion. Additionally, testing is confined to symptomatic people who must go out of their way to be tested, which means there are a heck of a lot of people with the virus who the test and trace brigade won’t have a clue about. Many may be asymptomatic; a proportion of the whole of whose number we still have no idea. In other words: we still don’t know exactly who has this virus or where they are.

Then there’s something we do know a bit more about: the horrible and bizarre nature of Covid-19 itself on people of all ages, including those not considered to have had a “severe” time of it. Now, at last, the sobering stories of many thousands still suffering terribly months after having first had the virus, most of whom never went to hospital, are emerging. Called “long-haulers”, these people, including fit young people, describe a never-ending roller coaster of symptoms, from extreme dizziness and fatigue to sudden fevers and, in the worst cases, blood clots.

Among some in medical circles, Covid-19 is increasingly seen as a chronic disease, not a one-off that people recover from. It is thought the virus may linger on in organs, explaining sudden relapses over a long period. It is thought to cause long-term damage to lungs, brain and elsewhere. Victims may never recover: what percentage is unknown, but it is higher than was first thought.

And so, as much as I crave a pint in the pub, this is a virus that I really, really do not want to catch. Following the murder of George Floyd, we saw people driven by indignation to cluster en masse; prioritising politics over pathogenic transmission. At least they were outside, many wearing masks and not primarily there to drink.

The reopening of pubs is a different story. We’re parched, bored, tired and glum. But the virus does not care. Just because we want it to be gone, or to behave differently, does not mean it will be or do either. Boozing it up in crowds, enjoying cold frothing pints in pubs, may be one of the great joys for us – but it’s also the perfect setting in which the existing low rumble of a new spike in Covid-19 infection could start to build back up to a roar.

We’re parched, bored, tired and glum. But the virus does not care