Coronavirus: IN DEPTH – Belfast virus expert says NI needs another month of restrictions at a minimum – insists UK response is no over-reaction – fears America is fast becoming a ‘nightmare’ example to the world

Dr Ultan Power rebutted suggestions made by a number of UK columnists that the response to the Covid-19 illness has been an over-reaction.

He also said that he can barely bring himself to look at data from the USA because the Americans are handling the virus so poorly.

Professor Power, who works at Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Medicine, initially spoke to the News Letter in mid-March, shortly before Northern Ireland began instituting restrictions on movement and distancing.

At that time, he was predicting that in the absence of a major clampdown Northern Ireland may face perhaps 400 or so deaths – much lower than some other estimates.

Speaking yesterday, he was unwilling to give any renewed ‘ballpark’ fatalities figure.

He told the News Letter: “My tendency always is to err on the side of caution than the opposite. If I’m right, I’d be delighted, because if it was that low it’d be really, really good.

“But we have to consider that other people have other opinions and modelling that’s done. And we have to take all of that into consideration when planning for what needs to be done to mitigate the pandemic.”

For instance he said Imperial College London had indicated that a scenario in which the authorities “do nothing” could see a quarter of a million deaths in the UK.

He said: “If somebody’s making the argument that we’ve gone too far, the alternative was the catastrophic situation like Italy [which had just under 11,000 deaths at time of writing]. I mean, the UK is actually heading in the same direction as Italy right now. The death rate is just continuing to go up and up and up.

“Italy fortunately looks like it’s turning a bend here at this stage. The increase in deaths has slowed fortunately. That was due to the massive restrictions they put [in place].

“If you’re telling me that those impositions are economically not justifiable, I’d suggest that is not the case.”

It was put to him that some commentators have likened the death toll from coronavirus to being akin to that from seasonal flu, which goes largely un-remarked upon.

“But if you didn’t do anything that would continue to rise and rise and rise, that is the issue,” he said.

“We don’t see 13,000 in northern Italy dying within four weeks or six weeks. It just doesn’t happen. You know it happens spread out over a much longer period. It’s happening at a much higher and much faster rate than what you’d expect say for seasonal flu...

“The coronavirus is brand new. And the concern is we don’t exactly know how it’s going to pan out.

“So we have an obligation to take every mitigating circumstance we can to make sure it doesn’t become the potential disaster that it could be.”

He added: “The economic consequences are secondary to the major crisis, which is the public health issue.

“Economists will obviously study this very closely. Because this is unprecedented. Virtually the whole world has closed down to a large degree, and the consequences will be massive.

“They’ll be bad enough in the UK, but can you imagine mid or lower income countries, that will literally starve because the don’t have the resources to keep food going.”

What particularly worries him right now is the situation across the Atlantic, where the virus is now spreading in a big way.

He said: “For me, the US is a nightmare. I’m literally covering my face with my hands – I know I shouldn’t be touching my face – but I’m peeking through my fingers to see what’s going to happen next because of the political turmoil that’s there.

“A large, sizable proportion of the population are not taking it seriously.”

He said there is terrible leadership on the issue, with states acting independently and sometimes even in competition with one another when doing things like ordering equipment.

“I’m just am really concerned that it’s going to be one of the biggest unmitigated disasters we’ve seen in modern times in terms of dealing with a pandemic situation.

“Trump supporters are believing this is not such a big deal...

“That’s probably one of the countries where you’d have expected a very robust response to the pandemic. It could be an unmitigated disaster.”

As for how Northern Ireland should react, he said more testing should be put in place since so many people have few to nil symptoms, citing the example of South Korea where there were drive-thru and walk-thru centres.

Then those infected people should be isolated (such as in hotels).

In short, his response to whether he thinks authorities are overreacting is: “No, I actually don’t. We have a potential catastrophic situation that will result in quite a lot of people dying.

“The major, major impact on the health service, and the knock-on effect on the health service means an awful lot of people are going to be dying for reasons other than Covid-19 because they’re not getting access to the kind of treatment they might need.

“It’s an unprecedented situation and I think we have to take it extraordinarily seriously.”

Asked if Northern Ireland will still be under the same restrictions it is now by the end of summer, he said: “If the whole of society takes this seriously and acts accordingly, we will get out of this a lot sooner. But how long is a piece of string?

“It’s really difficult to say precisely.

“Four weeks would be a minimum. It’s really important you follow the data, because if you come out too early, too soon, you’ll get a flare-up again quite quickly.”