#BTColumn – COVID-19 is no sprint; it’s a marathon

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Kim Penfold

With our latest surge in COVID cases in Barbados, and the related panic and rumour on social media, I thought it might be useful to add some context and perspective.

I have compared the Barbados figures with those for Stockport in the UK where my Barbadian wife and I lived for 30 years before we retired to Barbados.  Stockport has a population of 293,423 (2019 estimate) which is close to the 286,641 Barbados 2020 estimate.

Stockport is a Borough in the North West of England just outside Manchester but has not suffered as badly as some areas in the region. The reasons for that difference link to socio-economic factors for the most part, as Stockport is a relatively wealthy part of the North West.

Up to 25 January 2021 Stockport had suffered 512 deaths linked to COVID. Total cases recorded in Stockport were 16,717 and current cases over a seven day period were 934 which is 318 per 100,000 (and has been a lot higher).

The current case rate is actually 21 per cent lower than the previous week which probably shows the impact of re-introducing restrictions in England that had been relaxed over Christmas. The 16,717 figure for total cases is probably an under-estimate as there was very little testing in the early days in the UK and most asymptomatic and mild cases will have
been missed.

This compares with Barbados figures up to 23 January of 9 deaths (with the tenth reported in the press on 25 January), 1,387 total cases, and 744 active cases.

The 744 active cases equate to 248 per 100,000.  It should be noted that the definition of “active case” is not the same as the UK “current case”.

One of the things being done well in Barbados is track and trace. England lost the plot on this early on by trying to do it centrally through Public Health England (a body which is now being dismantled) rather than by the local authorities who had the expertise and experience.

The fact that we haven’t found “case zero” in Barbados is not a failure – case zero may have been asymptomatic and therefore very hard to find.

One thing they calculate in England is the R rate, this is reproduction rate of the virus in terms of the number of people infected by each person who has it (whether symptomatic or not). This needs sample survey data representative of the whole population as well as some other statistical input. At present they estimate R in Stockport in the range 1.0 – 1.4.

Any figure above 1.0 means the pandemic is growing, while below 1.0 means it is shrinking. For England overall, R is now 0.8 – 1.0 and the growth rate is negative, between -4 per cent and 0 per cent.

The infection survey figure itself has dropped from 1 in 50 people in England having the disease last week to 1 in 55 this week (all these figures are reckoned to be within 95 per cent confidence limits which is standard but does mean small changes are not necessarily “statistically significant”, so it is best to look at trends over a longer period).

These figures show two things. One is that COVID is not the easiest thing to catch if you are careful and, secondly, that tightening up restrictions a little bit at the beginning of January in England has already had an effect.

So, my conclusion is that the Barbados Government and its public health professionals have done a pretty good job with early restrictions and control of the borders.

The recent changes come from people becoming complacent and not sticking to the protocols (and I don’t care whether they are visitors, residents or citizens – the same rules apply).  I support Lt Col Bostic when he says we need to follow the protocols and the figures will then move the right way. We should all (young and old) continue to follow the simple advice and limit our social contact.

Finally, when we get vaccinations we must not relax immediately. I pass on the advice from the epidemiologist Prof Jonathon Van-Tam in the U.K. who is reminding people that benefit of the first dose does not come immediately, full benefit from the second dose is not immediate either, and immunity from symptoms does not mean you can’t carry the virus and pass it on.

The full benefit of vaccination requires high take up and we will need to continue with social distancing for quite some time.

As they say, this is a marathon not a sprint, and we all need to persevere with the careful behaviour that will get us to the finish.