It is time to think about a cruise. Or, how about a visit to a stately home or an empty school?
All of these are places where beds could be placed for the victims of Coronavirus. And places to put beds are the first things needed for the anticipated thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of patients with which the already overstretched NHS hospitals will be unable to cope.
There are other accommodation possibilities. Top of the list – private hospitals. They already have administrative and nursing staffs. Most of the doctors work in the public and private sector. There are 28 private hospitals in London alone. In the UK as a whole there are an estimated 30,000 private beds.
Schools are shutting and will remain shut until September. There are 32,770 schools in the UK. Empty classrooms, halls and corridors can be filled if necessary. Also available are leisure centres with their vast sports halls and universities. All of these will be empty and could be pressed into service and low-paid staff who would otherwise be at home worrying about how to find money for food and rent could be very usefully employed.
Stately homes are a traditional source of instant hospitals. There are 1,650 stately homes in the UK. Many of them saw hospital service during World War I and World War II. People will not be visiting these homes during the pandemic. They will be empty and waiting to contribute as they have in the past.
Back to the cruise ships. President Trump has offered New York City a military hospital ship to help that city cope with the coronavirus crisis. There are an estimated 550,000 passenger berths on ships involved in the world cruising industry. These ships and their crews are now idling in ports. They and their crews can be pressed into service, not just in developed counties, but in developing countries practically devoid of proper medical facilities.
It is vital that facilities are available to the developing world. Covid-19 is a pandemic which means it is a global problem which can only be solved by international cooperation. Checking the spread in just the relatively wealthy UK, Europe and America would be short-sighted. The virus could easily take hold in the developing world in such a way that those countries become a launch pad for a renewed attack on the developed world.
Identifying and preparing the physical infrastructure is only part of the solution. Also needed is the medical equipment and staff to run it. Respirators are the biggest problem. The British government is pressing the manufacturing sector to retool to produce more respirators.
As for staff, retired nurses and doctors are being urged to return to work. The government may also want to consider pressing into service those who have recovered from the virus and are now immune. There also about 7 million 16 to 22-year-olds with several vital qualities: they are less vulnerable to the disease; they are out of school and university and bored stiff; and they are generally keen to help. If necessary, introduce a conscripted Health Army to help maintain essential services and do the basic hospital work that could help free up trained medical staff.
All of the above may appear to some as spreading alarm and despondency. Well, the medical experts are unanimous that things are going to be worse. Yesterday (18 March) 417 people died in one day in Italy. As the scout motto goes: Be Prepared.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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5 Comments
For the avoidance of doubt.
The only policy that has halted and beaten back the coronavirus is a total lockdown. Now you can follow the policy of South Korea and use test, test and test again coupled with aggressive chasing of possible carriers but this seems to keep the virus at a low level rather than killing it. What you can’t do is half heartly deal with the victims, suggest perhaps we should be a little less sociable and allow Sir Timmy of Weatherspoons to encourage people to go down the pub because he’s a mate and major source of cash.
We will be forced into a total lockdown, but we will go late and it will cost many lives, irronically amongst the groups hardest hit will be the followers of Sir Timmy who are presently sat in a pub saying what a fine chap he is and how right it is to get Brexit done. Fools led by fools, putting us all at risk.
The govn’s move to get 70 plus people into self-isolation will change the dynamics of the death-rate, though it desperately needs to follow up with food deliveries as the supermarket’s delivery system is already overloaded and beyond many elders. Some work for the newly unemployed via the council?
Do dogs need to be banned from the streets, the way they run around licking everything seems quite dangerous, given the resilience of the virus? Be interesting to run a data search on dog ownership and incidence of infection. Can some dogs smell something on the skin of someone with the virus, might be useful at borders or even hospitals???
Quick self-tests will change the dynamics of the infection, as well, so there is some hope.
Personally I have started taking five 2000mg Vitamin C doses (diarrhea sets in if you take too much so it is self-limiting), anecdotal evidence on my side but lots of doctors will laugh… but nothing to lose. Actually, it has given me an energy boost and don’t need my midday coffee hit. I am not alone, the cost for bulk purchasing 1000mg pills has gone up approx four times since my eBay purchase ten days ago!!
Obviously testing is important, otherwise no one knows what is happening. So the government should have made sure that there was a robust supply chain as soon as they knew about the virus. It seems this did not happen.
At first I thought that Johnson was doing something right. He told us that he was taking expert advice.
Now I realise that there is no real plan after all. Look at what happened about schools. After a lot of rumours and so on, asking schools to close by the end of the week is irresponsible. If two week’s notice had been given two weeks ago there would have been time in particular for parents to plan.
I do not feel reassured by what is happening. People are worried – we lack leadership from the government. People will die as a result of the confusion and stress related to it.
It is time for Johnson to stop the play acting.
frankie – Canada is providing a good lockdown model: you close schools, unis and all other non-essential places like bars, clubs, theatres, concerts, dine-in cafes/restaurants…, pushing for working from home, but still allow essential workers to travel. Combining this with mass testing will help us not just flatten the curve but nuke it.
Mass testing is a must, using technology to track positive cases via credit cards and phones is a must, because we cannot fight Covid while being blind.