THE coronavirus pandemic can be beaten faster than predicted – as long as social distancing rules are followed, a Nobel laureate has said.
Professor Michael Levitt, who correctly forecast the pandemic’s trajectory in China, said his models don’t support predictions that Covid-19 will wreak months of social disruption – or cause millions of deaths.
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He believes that aggressive public health measures work – and pointed to the extreme action taken by China to stop the spread.
The 72-year-old, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, told the Los Angeles Times: “What we need to control is the panic,” adding that in the long term, “we’re going to be fine”.
Prof Levitt first began taking a look at the data emerging on the spread of the virus after writing to friends in China to show support.
He told Calcalist, an Israeli financial publication, earlier this month: “The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30 per cent each day — that is a scary statistic.
“I am not an influenza expert but I can analyse numbers and that is exponential growth.”
If the spread of infections had continued at that rate, the entire world would have been infected within 90 days.
However, the trend in Hubei province – where the outbreak originated in China – began to shift in early February.
Prof Levitt said: “On February 7, the number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop.
“A week later, the same happened with the number of deaths. Based on that, I concluded that the situation in all of China will improve within two weeks.”
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On February 25 – as the total number of cases reached nearly 79,000 – the China Daily News announced that the virus’s rate of growth had peaked.
He had also predicted that the total number of confirmed cases in China would reach about 80,000, with about 3,250 deaths.
And he wasn’t far off – China has reported 81,588 cases with 3,281 deaths as of March 24 – almost a month later.
Further analysis
Prof Levitt has now analysed data from 78 nations with more than 50 reported cases of coronavirus.
He said: “Numbers are still noisy, but there are clear signs of slowed growth,” adding that he is seeing “signs of recovery” in other countries too.
Prof Levitt acknowledged that not all cases have been detected in some countries, but their death tolls are on track with his findings.
And while fatality rates are higher than the flu, he said the pandemic is “not the end of the world”.
“The real situation is not as nearly as terrible as they make it out to be,” he told the LA Times.
Prof Levitt isn’t the only scientist striking a cautiously positive note.
Karol Sikora, the former head of the World Health Organisation’s cancer programme, tweeted: “This pandemic will end. I’m more optimistic than most — I hope by June.
“But that can only happen if people put the needs of others above their own.
“Forget politics and listen to the government — it will save lives.”
It comes as the global death toll from the virus reached 19,000 with more than 428,000 infected.
In the UK, at least 422 people have died and 8,077 cases of Covid-19.
Yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock called for 250,000 people to sign up as volunteers – with 170,000 signing up overnight.
Prof Powis said: “Overnight 170,000 people have signed up – that’s three a minute to help the NHS.
“It’s an absolutely astonishing response.”
Prof Powis said testing for NHS workers was being ramped up as quickly as possible, adding that people must play their part by adhering to the instructions laid down by the Prime Minister.
“When I see groups of 20 having a BBQ, frankly this putting pressure on our NHS, it is potentially costing lives and it means we need more ventilators,” he said.
“That just has to stop, that behaviour has to stop. You are putting untold pressure on the NHS by that behaviour.”
In the UK, the chairman of the Doctors’ Association UK, Dr Rinesh Parmar, has warned that medics will be forced to leave the profession over a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) available to safely treat patients during the pandemic.
And some 50 staff were reportedly off sick at a hospital in Essex.
Last night, Mr Hancock announced that an exhibition centre in London will be converted into a new NHS hospital.
He confirmed that a temporary hospital – the NHS Nightingale hospital – would be opening at London’s ExCeL centre, with 4,000 beds spread across two wards.
Mr Hancock also said 11,788 recently retired NHS staff had responded to the call to return to the service, including 2,660 doctors, more than 2,500 pharmacists and other staff and 6,147 nurses.
Some 5,500 final-year medics and 18,700 final-year student nurses will also “move to the frontline” next week.
