Since the section of this newspaper in which my articles are published is called ‘Political Economy’, so some readers might wonder what health has to do with that subject. I suppose the new corona virus pandemic has demonstrated rather unambiguously how related health is to both politics and economics.

It is worth pointing out that the term political economy is now archaic and has been replaced by the science of ‘economics’. So the continued use of ‘political economy’ in this day is clearly more of a conceit.

Almost exactly a month ago I wrote about this epidemic while it was still in an early phase. Since then it has really spread a lot and actually produced major international disruption and excessive concerns. However, I do not think that we are looking at a deadly pandemic like the Spanish Flu that happened almost a hundred years ago.

The disease called Covid-19 has spread to many countries all over the world, including the United States (US) and in Europe, especially in Italy. The impact has been profound with fears that the world economy might be adversely affected.

Even if we ignore the actual cost of treating sick patients, we have seen a pretty dramatic effect on the world economic situation. Stock markets went up and went down and up again, international travel has suffered and ‘supply chains’ have been disrupted.

The US Federal bank has even cut interest rates to stimulate the US economy and prevent a recession. Tourism has been seriously affected. Perhaps most striking of all recent developments has been the decision by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to suspend religious pilgrimages to the Kingdom for ‘medical’ reasons. That being a veritable first in Islamic history.

The political ramifications of the epidemic/pandemic are also significant. In the US, the way President Trump and his government handle this apparently spreading epidemic could well have an effect on his re-election later this year.

We in Pakistan have not had a major breakout, at least not yet, though it is unlikely that we will escape without some serious consequences. Even so, there has been some rumbling that the Government of Pakistan is suppressing news about the spread of this disease in Pakistan to allow the cricket league matches to go uninterrupted.

Newspapers, TV programmes and social media are full of information about this disease. So, I don’t think I need to add to the confusion about this virus and the disease it causes. I will, however, point out a few facts that do seem to get missed.

First and foremost, there is no vaccine available that can prevent an infection by the new corona virus. And there is no medicine that can treat it or ‘cure’ it. There were some early reports that medicines used against HIV-AIDS might be effective but that did not pan out.

The second thing we need to know is that once infected, less than 20 percent of those infected will become really sick. It is therefore quite possible that a person can become infected but not feel sick. This is bad in a way because such people might infect others without realizing what they are doing.

The third thing is that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the infection with this virus carries a mortality of 3.4 percent, which is much higher than that of the regular seasonal influenza (flu). However the reports from China suggest that patients outside the epicentre of this epidemic might have a much lower mortality.

Four, short of using a really extreme type of face mask, infection remains possible when being close to an infected person. Ordinary surgical face masks will not remove the chance of infection completely. However, possibly infected people will decrease the chance of spreading the infection if they happen to be using a face mask.

Five, the infection is what is called a ‘droplet infection’. It is spread when the infected person coughs, sneezes or even talks. Fine drops of saliva or mucous are released that contain the virus. To become infected, a person has to be close enough to breathe in these infected ‘droplets’.

The virus does not infect through the skin. But might stay on the skin and infect when contaminated hands touch the face and those droplets get inhaled. That is why hand washing is important.

What then can we do to avoid becoming infected? Wearing a face mask might not be too helpful. And for those that work and use public transportation, avoiding crowded places is difficult. And for those that work in offices and public buildings, public interaction is not going to be avoidable. So, stay away from people that are obviously unwell, wash or clean your hands often and do not linger in crowded places.

Though as is my wont, I was wondering if a unisex version of the ‘shuttlecock burqa’ with a modern antiseptic face opening might be worth bringing back.

Finally, there is still a lot we do not know about this virus and we will learn more as time passes. And it is quite possible that by the time an effective vaccine is developed against this infection, the epidemic might have burnt itself out. The major fear is that before it ends it might have had a major international impact.

It might seem that too many people are too worried about this disease, but in quite some time we haven’t had a disease that spreads so widely and so fast, so some worry is entirely justified. Also, we have been sensitized to the problem of an end of the world apocalyptic disease through books and movies.

What has changed since the last major pandemic from a century ago is that the world is much more connected now. You can be on one continent for breakfast and be at dinner thousands of miles away on the same day. And that is a problem when it comes to spreading these communicable diseases. 

What has changed since the last major pandemic from a century ago is that the world is much more connected now. You can be on one continent for breakfast and be at dinner thousands of miles away on the same day. And that is a problem when it comes to spreading these communicable diseases.

Very often the person in the early stages of an infection is not even aware of the problem and during travel might infect many people along the way, in an airplane or a train and at an airport or atrain station.

And that is another problem with modern air travel and some ground transportation that the travel hubs have people coming from many different directions. This comingling of people coming from different places facilitates the spread of communicable diseases like Covid-19.

For me this widespread epidemic has other messages besides the susceptibility of humanity to these new viral threats. We as humans are all together in the same boat or on the same planet. Covid-19 does not differentiate between people of different skin colours or different faiths. We are all equally susceptible and if infected will have a similar morbidity and mortality as anybody else.

And related to that is another equally important message. We are all so interconnected through trade and travel that it is no longer possible to close borders and expect to avoid being infected by these new diseases. It is therefore important that rich countries help the poorer ones to control such outbreaks and also help develop treatments for them.