How COVID Will Beat the World

To say this pandemic has the capacity to undo modern society is not an overstatement.

By Timothy P. Holmberg

By now, we all have a general idea of how the virus that dominates much of our lives and news headlines got started (unless you are a QAnon aficionado).

A series of missteps and pride induced decision making  by China allowed a foothold for a new coronavirus that otherwise would have been a footnote in an epidemiology textbook. From there, all but a handful of nations demonstrated their own fallibility, including the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

As much as the coronavirus itself has an affinity for the human ACE2 receptor, the pandemic seems to have an equal appetite for the accumulated defects in our societies and politics. 

Sweden quietly embarked on an eerily Arian-esque project that presupposed minimal effects in letting the virus have easy access while cruising to herd immunity. The UK got caught with its proverbial pants down (several times), and the US jumped the lunatic shark by alternately lampooning the seriousness of COVID while simultaneously offering a dizzying array of increasingly shocking “therapies.”

Prideful nations, one and all, got rude awakenings. 

But the pandemic also preys on individual human failings that are becoming more pronounced as the pandemic drags on. These include suspicion, selfishness, impatience and a litany of other modern behavioral maladies particularly endemic (though not exclusive) to developed nations. These things are like candy to a pandemic that has now run amok across the planet. 

While affluent nations could ponder lockdowns, distancing and supplemental income, poor nations had no such luxury. People in these nations literally had to choose between death and starvation.

In another time, we might have seen developed nations take decisive action and then unleash a global effort to arrest the virus in poorer nations. But, alas, we seem not to be that world at the moment. 

As such, COVID stands to either teach us all some valuable lessons, or alternatively, to grind our societies and resources down until even the mightiest of nations are brought to their knees.

To say this pandemic has the capacity to undo modern society is not an overstatement. A succession of “lockdowns” and economic disruption can only be tolerated for so long. A reality smugly totted about by proponents of so called “natural herd immunity.”

But an ominous development in Brazil is hinting that neither expensive vaccines nor mass infection may offer relief alone, the latter of which would be the most cruel of all courses. 

In Manaus Brazil, population 2.1 million, a new variant of coronavirus has emerged that represents virtually our worst fears. If initial indications are true, this variant may have demonstrated that natural “herd immunity” could be a catastrophic mistake. Concurrently, it may also prove that our approach to vaccination is woefully inadequate as it is currently being pursued. 

Manaus went through a terrifying gauntlet in April and May of 2020 that ultimately left the region with an infection rate so high that by most estimates it was the first area in the world to have reached herd immunity, with roughly 75% of the population estimated to have been exposed.  

It was assumed that this would be the last most of the world would hear of Manaus and its COVID infections, except perhaps to reflect on how the region had recovered. 

But then, in December of 2020, infections once again skyrocketed, and by January of this year, hospitals in the region were all but broken. The carnage seen in the area defies description. But how could that be in an area that supposedly had reached the much coveted herd immunity status the hard way? 

The answer, it seems, has now been identified in a new strain of the virus with a series of mutations that collectively are the embodiment of our epidemiological nightmares.

It is, of course highly transmissible, and crucially, it seems to have sidestepped the body’s immune response to a significant degree. Tests so far indicate that human antibodies produced from previous exposure are markedly less effective against this strain.

More ominously, we are now seeing that the effectiveness approved vaccines are in jeopardy also. There are indications that new mutations are substantially eroding the potency of flagship vaccines. 

This is, of course preliminary data, but if it bears out, the world will need to dramatically shift its response (and probably should anyway). 

This is a reminder that the battle we are engaged in is a mathematical one in most respects.

Each infection has a definable probability of producing a mutation. Of those, a known percentage will impart a new advantage to the virus. If that new variant is passed on, then a logarithmic formula will tell you the rate of spread. Then a chart is constructed that will tell you when, and by how much hospital resources will be exceeded.

And, lastly, the number of refrigerator trucks for the dead can be calculated. 

Masks, distancing, and even the vaccine itself are only useful if they are broadly administered and consistently utilized.

As your doctor at one time or another may have told you, medicines and treatments must be taken consistently and completely, even after you feel better. Otherwise, you provide a pathway to more dangerous infections. And therein lay the challenge. Vaccines are not available in quantity. Masks are also in limited supply. And many nations either lack the ability or the will to practice needed prevention. A reality that is unlikely to change unless our response becomes much more coordinated. 

So far, global response to the pandemic has been anything but global. Nations have largely pursued independent strategies and looked to protect their own populations.

Wealthy nations have, from the start of the pandemic, consumed most of the crucial resources needed to prevent the spread of COVID, leaving poor nations to improvise, and in some cases simply ignore the butcher in their borders. 

Crucially, as the shotgun sounded the start of the vaccine race, developed nations chose to flex their technological prowess by stuffing a flood of money into advanced development programs.  

Those have mostly produced multi dose vaccines with special handling requirements that make them logistical nightmares to deploy globally, and difficult to produce in quantity. And clearly the intent was never that these vaccines would find arms in poor nations. Those nations, it seems would be left to scramble for whatever second tier vaccine might show satisfactory results. 

Lurking underneath these events is a realization that seems yet to have set in - the only path to defeating COVID is a global path.

Out of control infection anywhere is a threat to populations everywhere. If we view the global population as a single body, then we realize that unless medication and/or intervention is administered throughout the body, we are caught in a game of whack-a-mole that will eventually deplete the resources of even the wealthiest of nations. 

We are now in need of mounting the largest and most comprehensive global health intervention ever undertaken. One that is aimed at nothing less than the elimination of COVID 19 from the human population.

The virus has by now demonstrated that it is incompatible with human civilization. It is disruptive in a way few diseases ever have been. The flu, while occasionally severe, is a manageable headache compared to COVID.  

What we do in the coming months could well determine the future of nations. And unless we come together as a global community, that future may look more like a dystopian sci-fi novel than a heroic chapter in history. 

To those who say such a global venture cannot be accomplished, consider this alternative:

If we continue down our current path, the virus will remain steps ahead of a disjointed response. The collective economic turmoil and disruption will loosen and then break free global economic gears. Shortages of goods and supply chain disruptions will hamper societies further and make containment of COVID almost impossible. That in turn will raise tensions and competition for dwindling resources.

At some point we will stand at the precipice of a conflict that every generation since the 1950’s has feared. If such a chain of events comes to pass, then it will not be a vaccine that ends the pandemic, but an orgy of self inflicted carnage that leaves COVID trapped in a few isolated pockets of surviving humans, like dying embers. 

And that is how COVID will beat the world. If we allow it.

Timothy P. Holmberg is a former staff reporter with the Gay & Lesbian Times, and SDLGBT Weekly. He has extensively covered HIV and health related issues. He currently writes independently. 

Lead Image by Viraj Tamakuwala via Pixabay