Coronavirus could hit us more ways than we think

It’s all booked, even the cattery and kennels for our beloved pets.

Visiting the grandchildren is a big thing for us as we don’t see much of them because of where they live. But, the prospect of maybe having to miss a birthday, in particular, upsets me big time.

The virus is marching through Europe, with England having 13 cases. But, leading virologist and research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, Dr Connor Bamford has warned that it’s a case of ‘when’ the virus reaches us not ‘if’.

The head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Ghabreyesus, has also warned that the world must prepare for a ‘potential coronavirus pandemic’. Major rugby matches face being postponed, schools could also close and can we comprehend what it might be like if the supermarket shelves were empty?

The last thing the UK needs at the moment is a health crisis. Here, last week, one in six Ambulance Service shifts couldn’t be covered. Our Health Minister, Robin Swann, has warned that his Department needs £661m to deal with the ongoing crisis in our Health Service.

I have reason to be grateful to our Health Service recently and I can’t imagine how people cope in the South of Ireland, where there is no NHS but a system which has to be paid for. How could we, here, cope with an outbreak of coronavirus in such circumstances? Do our leaders ever anticipate disaster until it hits them?

While most ordinary people worry about how this crisis will develop others have worries too, particularly those with investments. If the coronavirus spreads it could, wrote one investment expert, ‘crush global growth’. In Spain, France and Germany, fears that ‘companies could be hit by supply chain disruption and a collapse in consumer demand’ has affected their equivalent of our FTSE. Businesses are reluctant to send their staff on business trips to places like Italy.

My older son is an international traveller who expects to be grounded if matters get any worse. Those living off their private investments could be having sleepless nights if this continues. A suggested figure of £100bn for losses in investments since the coronavirus emerged seems astronomical. Maybe it would, after all, be much safer to keep our savings under the mattress.

In the midst of all this worry about our health and will we/won’t be struck down by this new mystery virus, there’s a possibility that most of us won’t live as long as statisticians have said we will. A report in the Daily Telegraph suggests that life expectancy in England has almost ‘flatlined’ for the longest continuous period in more than a century. Anyone hoping they might live longer than 79.6 years (men) and 83.2 years (women) may feel like revising their investments after such revelations.

The suggestion is that this stalling in life expectancy in the UK is more marked than in most European and other high income countries apart from the US. Austerity is partly to blame. Boris Johnson made a big play during the election for votes in the North East of the country. It is in the deprived areas of the north east and in London that are most vulnerable to the life expectancy decline. He has a job on his hands keeping to his promises.

The report doesn’t mention Northern Ireland but deprivation is not unusual here. Would it be too much to expect that our Assembly could now get the finger out to deal with this problem of deprivation and give our citizens a better chance to deal with a viral disaster should one occur here? Not only am I concerned about not being able to help my grandson celebrate his birthday next week, I’m also concerned about the price of sending Christmas cards come December now that the price of a first-class stamp will increase by six pence to 76p next month, with the price of a second class stamp rising four pence to 65p, the largest cost rises in stamps for eight years.