NOT A TIME FOR POLITICS.

Whatever they may say, there are some political figures who are desperate to turn COVID-19 into a tool for gaining future advantage. Protestations of support for the government are difficult to reconcile with a stream of claims that they aren't doing enough to support every disparate group, have got their strategy wrong, aren't doing enough testing, aren't accountable enough; basically that that they have got everything wrong.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 is dangerous, at least to some, but we have no idea how many may have been infected but shown no symptoms - results from one German village suggest that infection may be far wider than previously thought and serious consequences far less. Might this be the case world-wide or is it just an anomaly ? Are the world-wide panic measures really justified or are they not ?

There is a very important separation to be drawn between dying of COVID-19 and dying with COVID-19, although this distinction seems to be horribly lacking in any of the official reports. Dying of" the virus indicates that it was the primary cause of death; there were no other conditions which the virus did no more than mildly complicate or exacerbate. "Dying with" the virus means that the deceased had been diagnosed as having been infected with the virus but could well have died from other causes that had no connection at all with the virus. It has been suggested, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph a week or so ago, that most of the deaths so far attributed to the virus fall into this latter category. If so, how dangerous is the virus on its own to the rest of the population ?

To answer this question, and others, we can only rely on the knowledge and experience of the experts whose advice is being relied upon by our government. These experts may or may not be correct in their analyses of the situation but it is an unprecedented time and they have little in the way of passed history to use as a guide. Equally, our politicians will do what they think is for the best, guided by the best advice they can find. In the end, there will be no one to blame, only those to praise for helping us all to survive through an unprecedented time of national crisis. Doctors and nurses, carers, delivery drivers and shop workers, all of the other 'essential' workers and even those in government and advising government.

This is not a matter of politics, it's a matter of survival.