It is far from over

Dr David Nott, a trauma surgeon from Wales who has volunteered in crisis and conflict zones, says there is only a short amount of time before the most vulnerable parts of the planet are hit by the pandemic.

Dr Nott said: "We really need to start doing something to get on top of this. If we don't there'll be millions of people dying." He explained, "The main positive influences on reducing the number of deaths from COVID-19 have been handwashing, social distancing, and the lockdown. For the most vulnerable people on this planet, such strategies are not an option. People who live in conflict zones or in refugee camps cannot physically distance, they cannot self-isolate, they have inadequate facilities for washing, and are often without access to health care. In fragile settings, there is no massive infrastructure like the NHS. There are few ventilators... there is no piped oxygen, electrical power cuts are common, and the health workforce capacity is unlikely to be enough to deal with even a small number of COVID-19 cases, never mind the potential of thousands of deaths from this disease."

He added: "David Miliband, from the International Rescue Committee, did a survey very recently on 34 fragile countries using the same sort of modelling used by Imperial College London. In these countries, he said there is going to be between 500 million to one billion infections". Dr Nott said IRC had estimated there will probably be between 1.7m and 3.2m deaths, which he said was likely "if we don't do something about it now".

He said: "We can't wait any longer, we have to do something over the next four to five weeks. We cannot wait for another four to five weeks because they will be in exactly the same position we have been in. We have a short period of time to get it right."

Dr Nott said every country was doing what it deems necessary to tackle the virus, but the world needs to work together. 

It is tragic that the world cooperation that Dr Nott calls for will be lacking or at best, very limited.