Intensive care medic: ‘Lord Sumption from his lofty perch does not say how hospitals will be able handle waves of ill people at once’

Much of what he said indisputable but his assertions lack balance.

Lord Sumption said: “Anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria.”

He also said: “Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.”

Lord Sumption fails to distinguish between hysteria and alarm.

Front-line medical and nursing staff are not given to hysteria, much less are public health doctors.

If anything, the latter seem to lack any trace of emotional involvement. On the other hand, doctors and to an extent the general public, understand the catastrophic potential of this virus and are rightly alarmed.

Why so?

Firstly, because of the virulence of the organism in older age-groups and in those with underlying illnesses, including malnutrition.

Secondly, because of the speed with which the infection has spread to every corner of the globe — three months! Truly, a pestilence.

Thirdly, because we do not know if the virus will weaken, as would be expected, or if it might undergo some further mutation which would render it even more deadly. Unlikely, but possible.

Lord Sumption refers to restrictions and despotisms.

In fact, there have been very few legal restrictions and very many legal relaxations. The state is now the paymaster for a large proportion of the population, landlords are forbidden to evict tenants because of non-payment of rent, government is making available generous loan guarantees, and there are to be rent and rate ‘holidays’ or perhaps rebates for businesses.

In Northern Ireland, and soon in Great Britain, prisoners nearing the end of their sentences for non-violent offences are to be released up to three months early.

Lord Sumption could hardly describe these as the actions of a despotic regime.

Finally, Lord Sumption fails to address the problem of what to do with wave after wave of extremely ill people who present, all at once, at hospitals throughout the world for treatment — the exponential upwards curve.

The rationale of the current advice is based on the idea of flattening the curve so that at least the case load is spread out over a longer time.

He does not say what he would do with these patients.

Would he not admit them in the first place?

Would he give them a week of treatment and if not better by then switch off their ventilators?

Would he be prepared to justify his actions to relatives and the courts?

Lord Sumption might care to descend from his lofty perch and remember that these patients are fellow citizens of his who have paid taxes all their working lives.

Not only have we a duty of care to them, we have an obligation.

• Howard Fee MD is emeritus professor at the School of Medicine, Queen’s University, Belfast. He was professor of anaesthetics and intensive care medicine at QUB and director of Intensive Care at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast