I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Elderly and vulnerable people dying in large numbers, record levels of unemployment and business closures, people confined to their homes, countries isolated – it’s like a plot for a dystopian movie or a chapter from the Book of Revelation. We’ve had pandemics before of course, many were more serious, and it’s because COVID-19 is not as serious as say Ebola, MERS or SARS 1 that enabled it to spread so far, so fast. A really serious disease will incapacitate its victims limiting spread, whilst also provoking serious measures to prevent spread – but a disease with large numbers of mild or symptomless cases will spread rapidly and largely undetected. But how, in the 21st Century with all our medical knowledge and technology, did a pandemic bring the global economy to its knees?
Enter the Four Horsemen of the COVID apocalypse – a new revelation:
1. President Xi Jinping – riding on his red warhorse.
In December of 2019 news of a novel coronavirus causing clusters of respiratory illness in Wuhan leaked out – and it was clear that there would be no natural immunity, so containment was the only option. The highly structured government in China was in a unique position to stop the spread of the virus, unencumbered by democratic barriers they were able to control their population in a way that would be unthinkable in the West.
By January they had sealed off 15 major cities, quarantining 50 million people, domestic travel was stopped and social distancing measures and mask-wearing was strictly enforced amongst the wider population – and yet international travel was not stopped for a further 2 months, allowing the virus to spread throughout Asia and Europe and seeding a global pandemic. It is very challenging for any country to prevent a virus jumping from animals to humans, with most seasonal flu pandemics starting this way, but the novel coronavirus was different to flu due to the lack of any human immunity, and the failure to stop international travel in January 2020 was the key decision point that created the pandemic.
2. CNN – clad in moral armor and holding the shield of truth
All news and media outlets were guilty of deliberately creating a climate of fear that amplified the economic damage, but CNN made it into an art form. Each news report about the growing pandemic was accompanied by dramatic ‘COVID music’ plus statistics showing ‘record’ numbers of deaths. A feature of any pandemic is logarithmic growth in numbers of cases and deaths, with occasional remissions when the growth rate stalls due to new initiatives or seasonal factors. If you tracked any cold or flu outbreak, you’d see logarithmic growth and ‘record numbers’ every day, but nobody makes news reports about colds and flu. And if you reported the deaths from TB, diarrhea or heart disease you’d get higher numbers than deaths from COVID, but those diseases are not newsworthy.
The fascination with COVID-19 was for two reasons – firstly, creating a climate of fear helps to sell newspapers, drive viewers and clicks to media sites, and secondly, daily reports on the growth of COVID numbers is a way to highlight failings of the current government. CNN had been on a mission to criticize President Trump ever since the election – and even if criticism is sometimes justified, dramatizing a pandemic for political reasons will fuel fear amongst the general population and cause the Government to respond to that fear with economically damaging measures that would never be considered if cold, scientific logic was applied.
3. Johns Hopkins – riding the horse of wisdom
In 2004, a 20-year-old intern at an IT company developed an algorithm to aggregate global data taken from news reports. The algorithm was used to track population growth, car ownership and other measures of economic development, and it was published under the ‘Worldmeters’ brand. Johns Hopkins university saw the potential to use the tool for marketing purposes and republished the data on their website. The Worldmeter data attracted little attention until they added reports about COVID numbers to the site. News reporters started to use the data as if it was a reliable source of information on the pandemic – probably under the mistaken assumption that the well-respected Johns Hopkins medical university was responsible for producing scientifically valid epidemiological data.
The statistics were then picked up by policy makers, and important policy decisions were being made based on data that was little more than an aggregation of press reports. This resulted in panic reactions and poorly developed responses, thus increasing the economic damage.
4. Astra-Zeneca – the savior on a white charger wielding the sword of hope
To stop a pandemic, the majority of people in every country either need to be immune or be taking sensible precautions to prevent spread. For most people – the only way to become immune to a novel virus is to catch it, which is not an ideal solution, so we need people to change their behaviors. However, if people believe that science will save them, then the perceived need to change personal behaviors to the ‘new normal’ is diminished, helping the pandemic to thrive.
The rush to develop a vaccine is commendable, and new developments in genetic engineering will produce vaccines that will help to protect some people – but it will not be a way to end the pandemic. Currently the only human disease eradicated by vaccination is smallpox – and that took 200 years to achieve. In addition – smallpox is unusual in that it does not mutate, meaning that a single vaccination provides lifetime protection. The SARS-CoV 2 virus is known to mutate, so booster shots may be needed, and there are also major logistical and cultural barriers to vaccinating over 70% of the world’s total population, which is what is needed for vaccination to end the pandemic. So, vaccination will help to protect vulnerable people, medical workers and international travelers, but by itself it cannot stop the pandemic due to the practical challenges of vaccination most of the global population.
So, if vaccination is not a cure, and making such claims is counter-productive in the war against COVID-19, why are we being told that vaccines are our savior? Share prices are the answer. The huge investment required to develop a new vaccine in record time needs to be covered. Sending out press releases claiming 95% effectiveness of a new vaccine increases the value of all the companies involved in vaccine development, helping to provide returns on the investment.
Any pandemic that results in excess deaths is a tragedy, but the unnecessary economic damage has compounded the misery, and the fall-out has made the poor even poorer while the rich have become even richer – and the Four Horsemen, who are meant to be representatives of the groups responsible for amplifying the apocalypse, have added to the misery, and not always for saintly reasons.