COVID-19: HOW WELL PREPARED ARE WE FOR SARS3 AND SARS4 ?

 

Today a report called “Coronavirus: Lessons Learned To Date” was published jointly be two Westminster committees - the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee.  

Chaired by Conservative MPs Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, the committees also have MPs from Labour and SNP.  The report had the MPs’ unanimous backing.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON CORONAVIRUSES

Coronaviruses in humans are not new.  Some ‘common colds’ are caused by coronaviruses, without being especially dangerous.  

But in recent years we were given a serious warning by two coronaviruses. SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) arose in China in 2002 and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) arose in Saudi Arabia in 2012.  These were dangerous, with deaths for around 1 in 10 contracting SARS and as high as 1 in 2 from MERS. 

Fortunately both outbreaks were contained quickly.  But what if a more contagious variant was to arise and spread quickly across the globe, whilst also being dangerous? SARS2 or MERS2?  How well prepared would we be?

We didn’t have long to find out.  The official name for the virus that causes SARS is SARS-COV, now known as SARS-COV-1.  That name change is because the virus behind COVID-19 was identified in late 2019 as from the same ‘species’ and named SARS-COV-2.  

SARS-COV-2 spread quickly, and subsequent ‘variants’ have been even more contagious.  The Delta variant quickly became dominant in the UK and in other countries.

So now how well prepared are we for SARS-COV-3, SARS-COV-4 or MERS-COV-2 that is both dangerous and highly contagious?

Let’s look at the Westminster report.

BACK TO THE REPORT -  ITS CONCLUSIONS

Focusing on England, the report’s conclusions included:

• “The UK’s pandemic planning was too narrowly and inflexibly based on a flu model which failed to learn the lessons from SARS, MERS and Ebola.”  As noted above, SARS and MERS are both coronaviruses.
• “… not considering a more emphatic and rigorous approach to stopping the spread of the virus as adopted by many East and South East Asian countries.”  Those had learnt from SARS

In other words the new coronavirus was not treated seriously enough.   
Why was that?  A variety of reasons, not least hoping to avoid an economic hit.

What if the disease had been called SARS2 instead of COVID-19, by the media if not officially?  That would have alerted both Government and the public to the similarity to deadly SARS.  Indeed maybe it’s time to regard COVID-19 as SARS2.

In any case, how well prepared are we now for SARS3, SARS4 or MERS2 which would be both dangerous and highly contagious?  Especially if it bypasses the new COVID vaccines.  Even a new 'escape' variant of SARS2, which could arise shortly.

THE REPORT’S RECOMMENDATIONS

The report’s conclusions include “Previous exercises to test the national response capability, namely Exercises Cygnus and Winter Willow, did not squarely address a disease with the characteristics of covid-19”  We simply weren’t ready.

Indeed the report makes a number of recommendations that ought to be put in place urgently.  They follow the conclusions on each topic:

• Pandemic Preparedness - points 7-17
• Response – points 25–28
• Testing and Contact Tracing – points 38-42
• Social Care – points 48-51, to which should be added a specific recommendation on PPE
• At Risk Communities – points 57-64
• Vaccines – points 73-77

SO ARE WE READY?

There’s some thirty six recommendations to be better prepared to handle a further pandemic.  So it’s fair to say we are not as prepared as we should be. 

We need to be far better prepared for SARS 3 or SARS4. Or indeed MERS2 or any other virus that is both dangerous and highly contagious.  We cannot risk a repeat of the SARS2 / COVID-19 pandemic.  If we can avoid it.