Covid-19: The Way Forward

Diseases and illnesses have plagued humanity since biblical times, however, today’s interconnected global economy is particularly efficient at helping spread new infectious diseases and simultaneously is uniquely vulnerable to disruption due to its long supply chains. Black death, yellow fever, Spanish flu, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and SARS are some of the most gruesome diseases humankind has faced thus far. Evidence shows that throughout history, nothing has killed more human beings than viruses, bacteria, and parasites that cause disease. Not natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes or tsunamis, not even war has come close. Covid-19 marks the return of an old enemy. A few months ago, only a small number of people knew that Covid-19 existed; now the virus has spread to almost every country in the globe, infecting 2858635 people whom we know about and many more that we do not. The viral outbreak has resulted in 196296 deaths worldwide as per World Health Organisation records on April 27 2020.

Over the past 15 years, health experts have written scores of papers arguing the inevitability of a global pandemic of this scale. In 2019, the US Department of Health and Human Services carried out a pandemic exercise named ‘Crimson Contagion’, which imagined a flu pandemic originating from China and spreading the world over. In 2018, BBC Future reported that experts believed the occurrence of ‘a flu pandemic was only a matter of time’ and that there could be millions of life threatening viruses yet to be discovered. Further back in 2015, Bill Gates gave a Ted Talk warning about the risk of a pandemic disease; it was in this talk that he stated, “there’s no need to panic… but we need to get going”. Just as the eventual arrival of a disease like Covid-19 was easily predictable, so too are the actions we should have taken to prepare ourselves against its coming. Governments the world over failed to heed such warnings; now we must look for solutions to overcome this pandemic that has brought life on earth to an almost standstill.

Despite the persistence of disease throughout history, there is one consistent positive trend over time, which is the gradual reduction in the death rate. Healthcare improvements and understanding factors about the disease and its spread dynamics have been powerful mitigating tools. We need to learn lessons from past outbreaks to fight the Covid-19 pandemic; a co-ordinated global effort among researchers, countries, non-governmental and international organisations is the key to fight the current pandemic. Most crucial now is the development of a vaccine. Until now, viruses that cause diseases were either mild or rare and so researchers must start from scratch. The first steps have been impressively quick with labs around the world developing possible vaccines and some even starting clinical testing on humans. However, the cure is not near yet. Initial trials will tell researchers if the vaccine seems safe and can mobilise the immune system, then further tests and large scale trials need to be conducted to check for side effects. The next issue is manufacturing of the vaccine at a massive scale and the time it will take to reach the masses. For the future, we must prepare standby diagnostics, deep antiviral libraries and early warning systems to mitigate the effects of any such diseases.