"What exactly is the point you are making?"
Sorry, CG, I was nodding off and in a hurry to go to bed; I will endeavor to explain further. There are actually 3 points here ……..
1. President Trump is not exactly everyone’s cup of tea; he would certainly not be my drinking partner of choice. There are some, however, who have such a hatred of the fellow that they dismiss, on principle, every word that he utters whether or not it is true or realistic. Hence there was uproar in certain quarters when Trump banned flights from Europe into the US – meanwhile, I understand that certain eastern countries are also banning flights arriving from Europe because Europe is now considered by many to be the current epicenter for the virus.
OK, I am a scientist but it shouldn’t be too difficult for anyone to acknowledge that air-travel is a major factor in the spread of human pathogens. Those of us who have benefitted from a training in classical phytopathology will probably be musing that air-travel, to the spread of Covid-19, is what the combine harvester was to common bunt of wheat (Tilletia caries – look it up).
2. On the other hand we in the UK allowed 3000 football fans to fly in, without any checks, from Madrid – a known heavily infected area where football has to be played behind closed-doors. It has been postulated that the graph of ‘infection numbers’ will rise slowly like the brim of a sombrero (in cross-section), rise rapidly to a peak at the top, then tail-off again. The idea, expressed in the UK, is that by ‘flattening’ the top of the sombrero, we can lower the number of infections occurring at one time so that our health services will be better able to cope. I do not believe that allowing the entry of people from areas of heavy infection will help to flatten the peak of that curve. In fact, if new variants of the virus were developing in different areas, then the introduction of such variants would not help the situation.
3. The term ‘herd immunity’ has been picked up enthusiastically by the media. Herd immunity will quite possibly develop over time, but we won’t really know that we have it until this pandemic is over; of course, it will only be of benefit to those who are left. How Covid-19 develops in the future and if we will be able to successfully introduce a vaccination program is anyone’s guess.
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