Ben Lowry: Be wary of anyone who says there is an easy response to this unfolding global disaster

In fact that figure was easily worked out last month when it was reported that much of the world could be infected in the pandemic.

Looking back to the 1918 Spanish flu, for which deaths toll estimates vary widely, it is clear that a large minority of the world population was infected and that a noticeable percentage of the then two billion people died (at least 1%, up to 5%).

Even low estimates have a death toll at or higher than the 2o million killed in the Great War catastrophe.

When, in the decade of centenaries, newspapers such as this one have looked back on news reports from 100 years previously, they all have reports from 1918-19 of large numbers of people in hospital in Northern Ireland for influenza.

A friend of mine says his grandmother recalled men in horse and cart in Belfast calling: ‘Bring out your dead’ (many of our readers were born in the 1940s or before.If you have similar stories email [email protected]).

The UK is around 1% of the world population (70 million of 7.5 billion) and Northern Ireland’s is around 3% of the UK (1.8 million of 70). If 80% of the world gets it and 1% of them die, that is around 60 million, 600,000 and 15,000 respectively.

If the global death toll from this outbreak is not ultimately measured in those sorts of numbers, then we will have reason to be grateful (but it is important to note that death tolls might be far, far lower).

So we want to prevent anything near those fatality numbers, which are easy to estimate. The trickier thing is how to achieve that.

A lot of people have criticised the UK for not going into lockdown. We are near that stage with today’s closure of pubs, gyms and restaurants.

Calling for shutdown is easy. But most of us are laymen who have been learning as we go, and it has become clearer why experts have feared shutdowns. For example, it is almost three weeks since I was at a seminar in Dublin, days after the first case arrived in Northern Ireland (via bus from Dublin).

I travelled down by coach myself for that event, to and from the Republic’s capital, and later wrote about how people were routinely shaking hands (after advice not to do so). Days later, back in Belfast people were still shaking hands. In the article I wrote about the ongoing habit and said we should isolate vulnerable folk such as the elderly.

But that was before the government said coronavirus might not peak until late June. And elderly relatives of mine, far past retirement age, who had begun to curb movements already felt frustrated.

It soon became clear that the UK, like all governments, had information from behavioural scientists about the risks of clamping down on movements too early because people will just begin to break it after a while, perhaps at a much more dangerous stage in the virus cycle.

I have heard a horrifying anecdotal report, from a society more restricted than the UK is now, that police are already dealing with reports of domestic violence akin to Christmas levels, which are high.

Of course I hope that is wrong, but it is unsurprising if true. Across the world, tens, soon hundreds, of millions of people might be living on top of each other for months, many of them terrified for their livelihood, some turning to drink, all of this amid bored children.

And it will be awful too for those living alone. BBC news on Thursday reported from streets, and talked to three people, two women and a man, who lived alone and said they had to go out because they had no-one to help them get provisions, and for human contact.

Even closing schools was not a simple decision, as some people implied it was. There is a view that it should be one of the last things to happen, after stringent other measures such as pub closures (because it helps key workers, because young people are least likely to be badly affected and because it means they are less likely to spend a full day around vulnerable grandparents).

Another reason to delay shutdowns is financial collapse, leading to a global depression in which millions of people are plunged into poverty and early death.

The UK rescue package announced yesterday was excellent, but if it goes on for months it will have to be paid for through massive tax rises (which most decent people will accept) but also big public sector cuts, perhaps including pay.

It will then be unlikely that the UK spends hundreds of millions of pounds probing the legacy of our Troubles or tens of billions on the HS2 high speed rail in England or any expensive projects.

This week I asked a medical expert if we could take hope from China where only 90,000 people are reported infected. Even if the real number is 10 times higher, a million, that is still less than 0.1% of that nation’s 1.4 billion population.

He said that is good if correct but means that 99.9% of China has no immunity, and there could be a huge outbreak when people emerge from lockdown. The idea of getting herd immunity among the healthy, while very risky, is not absurd.

The most worrying statistic in Northern Ireland, even more worrying than our shortage of critical care beds, is our tiny number of ventilators. The world has far fewer than it needs, including America which has 160,000 (it needs millions). But we have far less than that per person. While it is easy to say we must increase the number (and we must, radically) they need trained operators. I hope the UK is training people on a huge scale.

The software on which I write this article can be learned in a day or two, yet even it takes months to become effortless to use. It will take many weeks to get enough ventilator operators, let alone ventilators.

As to the Ireland v UK debate, of course it makes sense for NI co-operate fully on an island basis. Common sense suggests that it would take a virus longer to spread from, say, Italy to an island such as Great Britain than to France, which has a land border. Likewise, that it might take longer still to reach this island.

But while all-island co-operation is a no brainer, so too we ought to have been open to restrictions at the land border had it been needed. Would we have been?

So this is an unfolding disaster but we should be wary of anyone who suggests there are easy answers to it. Divisions among global experts on points show not.

There is much to be grateful for. The world now has technology that makes home working feasible in many jobs — the above mentioned editorial system has enabled News Letter staff to do so. And in the northern hemisphere we are entering months of better weather.

• The editor on page three explains how to keep buying this paper. Thanks to our readers, and take care of yourselves and loved ones

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter deputy editor