Getting back to life again

Everyone’s mind is on the development of a vaccine to control the spread of the pandemic.

Did you know we do not have to produce a vaccine to monitor any recurrence of the pandemic?

Research epidemiologists in France maintain that the simplest and easiest way of identifying the presence of this rogue and clever virus, is for humans to be as clever as the virus itself.

Environmental surveillance

The suggestion is that sample tests can be made of the bacteria found in the effluent sewage water of towns and cities and you can easily monitor if the strain of COVID-19 is still present and in circulation. This is more like a litmus test if the virus is still around.

Researchers have demonstrated the potential value of sewage water system monitoring for studying the trends in the circulation and for recurrence of COVID-19.

                                               

Pathogens present in the sewage have been studied by microbiologists and waste water screening is a well recognised surveillance tool.

This could become part of the UK Government’s battle plan to track and trace as well as check recurrence of this pandemic as restrictions are being slowly released.

When we are uncertain about what to do, we look to the behaviour of others to guide us. They provide us with a signal as it were about our choice of action. This is called herd immunity. The Government having tried both suppression and mitigation policies is slowly but surely wanting to get the economy back to work again, but not immediately.

Suppression policies

All around the world suppression of the virus has been the preferred option to mitigation because they deal directly with people’s fears and government’s care of the threat to human lives.

Mitigation policies address the fear of infection of the virus. But as populations are getting weary of permanent lockdown, the UK and other governments have this week opened up schools and released the strain of staying at home. But they are still cautious

not to open the flood gates too soon.

Pent up emotion, pent up demand

What we are seeing in the United States after George Floyd and the ripples it has caused in many other countries, governments are wanting to cool things down, especially with the prevalent heat wave in Europe and across the U.S.

The first thing that comes to mind for an ordinary man is the desperate need to visit the Barber Shop without any further delay, and the same for a woman, to go to her hairdresser.

Hair has got desperate, it has overgrown, beyond recognition. The barbers and hairdressers have been closed/shut for over ten weeks. Beauty has gone out of the window; maintenance rather than pampering is screaming for attention.

As many have lost their sense of taste and smell with the viral infection, people around the nation are at long last wondering when they can hope to look presentable?

Many people feel guilty to break the code of social distancing, but no one has dared to question in Parliament when we will get back to life again?

Victor Cherubim