As best we know: Where we stand

As best we know: Where we stand

- Omar Khan

A disease-modelling study recently released from the University of Oxford makes the claim that the majority of coronavirus infections are so mild as to have already passed unrecorded by the authorities and potentially also by the people infected.

This is a serious university study, much hated by the “hysteria industry” for whom the pandemic is a true gold-mine. The rest of us have to intelligently play “agnostic” and “sceptic” with these claims and continue to err on the side of humanity (both medically and economically I should add).

But if this is the case, a large percentage of those in Asia and Europe may have already had the virus and developed a degree of immunity. Therefore, what that would entail would be to allow the lockdowns in the US (which while they are regulating flow of people are not curfews, hence Government can stay focused on medical and economic response) to have their necessary four to six weeks, hopefully, let the pressure diminish on intensive care units, and we may turn a decisive corner.

Part of what set off the media conflagration was a far grimmer study emerging earlier from Imperial College, London. Again, our current data is so incomplete, it could underwrite either hypothesis… almost.

The Imperial College study was based on literally nothing being done to contain the virus. Neil Ferguson who was the primary architect of the study has now radically scaled the projection of deaths back drastically in the UK from 500,000 to fewer than 20,000 in just a few weeks. And this may get scaled back further as more responses are undertaken. Hence, I believe we owe it to our rational faculties, and wanting to preserve a working world, to investigate the Oxford claims.