Britain's vision remains unclear regarding dealing with "Covid-19", at a time when the government was criticized for its faltering response to the Corona epidemic. Anthony Costello, an international expert and former WHO official, was among the critics of the London response, believing that rushing would not benefit at this point in the pandemic. The following are excerpts from the interview conducted by the Guardian newspaper:
• What do you think about the decision to finally open bars?
- Well, it is very strange that in Britain we open pubs before schools, and this says something about our priorities, and in the open air the stakes are very low; And it is 19 times less dangerous, according to a Japanese study. It may be appropriate to open cafes and bars as long as the service is outside, and the concern is that people will gather together, to get drinks, and while they drink, they will lose self-control, and there is a high possibility that the inner space is a super hot spot; So I am opposed to opening bars, but I understand why they are doing this.
• Should the demonstrations of "Blacks Life Important" be allowed?
Outdoor protests; If it is well managed and the people organizing the protests make a serious attempt to control it, it can be said that democracy transcends the danger at the present time, because we are at the bottom of the curve. The problem is that if the protests are very large then there is some danger, but the bars are more dangerous than the protests, or even Bournemouth Beach, which has been unfairly criticized.
What is your assessment of vaccine development and when will it be available in real terms?
The good news is that we have laboratories around the world looking for a vaccine for this virus, and these laboratories have good techniques for developing vaccines, and there is a lot of money that you get, and yet you have not been able to come up with a Corona virus vaccine yet, and it usually takes development Vaccines are many years old because their safety must be tested. More worryingly, the immune response to the virus does not seem very good and fade away.
• There was a lot of speculation about social change after «Covid-19» .. Do you think this will happen?
- I hope so, and even though I am a pediatrician and most of my work has been in community health in low-income countries, I have been involved in the past 10 years in efforts to combat climate change. I was moving around a lot when I was at the World Health Organization. My fear is that within a few years, if all this ends or we get a vaccine, things will return to where they were, but the climate crisis is much more serious, and we do not have much time to correct this.
How do you see the coronavirus currently?
A leading neuroscientist in the world who is a professor at the University of California called Carl Friston has reached a completely different approach to Neil Ferguson and Adam Kucharsky, both good epidemiologists, and Friston believes that the level of herd immunity to stop this epidemic may be much less than 60% Maybe 25 or 30%, and what he says is that about half of the population is either isolated or protected, so they are not exposed to the virus, and the remainder half are not susceptible to infection like children, because they have good mucosal immunity, others may experience symptoms but do not transmit the infection easily. We have just sent a message to the Lancet on this topic, and if our assumptions are correct, it may mean that this crisis will end sooner than we expect, but the coronavirus will not be eliminated without a vaccine.
It takes several years to develop vaccines because they must be tested for safety, and what's worrying is that the immune response to the virus is not very good and fades away.