News piece by Tala Karkanawi, Staff Writer

April 1st, 2020

“The enemy you don’t know is much scarier than the enemy you know.” notes Dr Otto Yang an expert on infectious diseases from UCLA in his statement regarding coronavirus’ worldwide panic

Our world is facing a extraordinary outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) causing widespread panic all around us. COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease causing symptoms that might be mistaken as a common flu. Knowing that pandemics have occurred before as inevitable part of history, this is not the first time something like this has happened. Conversely, COVID-19 is causing a bigger panic than what anyone has expected, causing states and governments to take vast precautions for the sake of the people. Everyone is working together to help slow down this humanitarian case, and as a student living in the United Kingdom, I personally expected I would be safer here than if I went back Lebanon. Unfortunately, I was wrong and had hopeless and false expectations instead.

The UK is known for its powerful history, being a noteworthy developed country and one of the world’s most impactful nation-states, and thus its carelessness towards the covid-19 pandemic have outraged its people. Deaths and confirmed cases are doubling and tripling by the day, resulting to an utmost number of 17,000 cases in less than a month with a total of circa a thousand deaths. The National Health Service (NHS), with all their effort and hard work they are setting to reduce confirmed cases, is still not enough. The central and most permissive reason why is because the country tried to implement a national lockdown a bit too late, and by a bit too late I mean on the 25th of March. Thus overdue lockdown is unfortunately not being taken seriously by the people nor by the state. Most restaurants and public stores are still open and available, and the supermarkets are continuously full and packed. Even further than this, another unexpected problem that the UK is facing is facing during this unprecedented pandemic is that the NHS is facing a series of issues with its resources and finance. Thus, testing and hospitalization is mainly approved on patients that show extreme signs of illness and the elderly. 

Researchers show that UK might be a few weeks, or if the situation stays the same, a few days behind Italy’s peak. Contrasting how China and South Korea handled the situation, they implemented severe lockdowns and precautions slowing the possibility of the virus to spread around and stabilizing the scale making sure the line doesn’t rise causing another peak. The UK reached its recent peak with an alarming number of 260 deaths on the day of March 28 2020 alone. Furthermore, multiple notable figures from the British government tested positive for COVID-19 such as prime minister Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, and the health secretary Matt Hancock. The state should be desperately urged to implement actual and serious precautions, in addition to finding solutions concerning aid for the NHS in fighting this unprecedented pandemic. 

The UK Planning system is faced with substantial challenges and is coming under great pressure to figure out solutions in order to keep the country going throughout and to ensure an economic breakout doesn’t face them. Although, it is important to note that the sterling (GBP) has been fluctuating against the dollar, reaching a shocking value of 1.15$ during the second week of march as the pandemic continues to tear globally. Most thought that Brexit (GB exiting the European Union) was the main reason for the decline of the sterling, but it was actually the overwhelming pressure of the coronavirus says Richard Benson, a co-chief investment officer at Millennium Global Investments in London. 

Unfortunately, social distancing is a minor solution. Despite its great necessity and vitality, it needs time before showing significant changes and effects says Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College. Thousands of people are still getting infected per day with the levels of death increasing. With multiple countries working on finding a solution or a vaccine for the virus, the UK needs to implement serious measures getting the country on an immediate lockdown, starting with its airports.