The UK could only reach Covid ‘alert level one’ by using up limited third world medical resources
Given that Covid will now be forever endemic within the global human population, it will be impossible, by definition, to reach alert level one for any more than intermittent periods.
Cartoon by Crid.
The Government's benchmark to lower the UK Covid ‘alert level’ to ‘level one’ is: ‘Covid is not known to be present in the UK.’
Given that Covid will now be forever endemic within the global human population, it will be impossible, by definition, to reach level one for any more than intermittent periods.
The only way to change this is a global vaccination programme, similar to the ones that eradicated smallpox and (almost) polio. As smallpox and polio show, this is possible. However, we should understand that, beyond its cost, it would probably be immoral.
Covid has not greatly affected third world nations, mainly because of their climates and young populations. Polio (still a threat to Pakistan, for example), or malaria, yellow fever or any number of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands are much more serious threats.
As such, for the UK – one of the richest countries in the world – to reach Covid alert level one, it would have to use desperately limited third world medical resources that would have otherwise been used to protect the world’s poor.
