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Will discovering coronavirus ‘dark matter’ save us from the dreaded second wave?

One scientist has posited that there is a so-far-unknown reason why more of us are immune to the virus than originally thought

NHS workers react at the Royal London Hospital during the last day of the Clap for our Carers campaign

Has Sweden finally repented of its error in rejecting lockdown? “Light touch cost us many lives, Swedish scientist concedes” ran an Australian headline.

“Swedish faith in Covid strategy plunges after errors revealed,” said an American newswire.

“Sweden’s Tegnell admits too many died,” revealed the BBC.

Only one country seemed to miss this story: Sweden. Anders Tegnell, its state epidemiologist, was quoted talking about other issues – but not renouncing his strategy. Which raises the question as to whether something was lost – or, rather, added – in translation.

Tegnell was asked if too many had died from Covid. “Yes, absolutely,” he replied. Hence the headlines. He went on to underline doubt, as he often does in his daily televised conferences. Everyone is learning all the time, he said, so if this happened again, of course he’d do things differently.

But it’s still too early to say what, he said. Perhaps he would not have closed down sixth-form colleges. He says he has still seen nothing to make him think lockdown worked – and points to Britain as an example of its failure. Will he have made mistakes? Certainly. Which ones? Only time will tell.

This is why scientists tend to stay out of the political arena: honesty backfires. Admit doubt, and it’s spun as a humiliating admission of failure. Admit regret, and it’s a declaration of incompetence. But science is full of doubt: positing a theory, inviting challenge and welcoming refutation.

Politics is more about posturing and certainty, sticking to your guns and going out singing Non, je ne regrette rien. This Covid crisis, however, is characterised by doubt. There is far more doubt, even now, than politicians like to admit.

Take the theory that there will be a second wave of Covid. The argument, crudely put, is that lockdown put a lid on the virus. Lift lockdown, and the virus escapes. Those who have had it are probably safe, because they develop antibodies. But until there’s a vaccine, everyone else will be vulnerable.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has even spoken of wristbands being worn by those who test positive for antibodies: they’d be free to go back to work. But others would be at risk because (as he assumed at the time) there was no such thing as immunity to Covid.

This is now being challenged by studies suggesting many, perhaps most of us, might have some immunity because we fought off common colds (about a third of which are caused by coronaviruses). Researchers call it “cross-protective immunity”. Anthony Costello, a former director of the World Health Organisation, who once feared the worst about the virus, says the new studies cast doubt on whether there will be a second wave after all.

The latest development came from a team in California who found a certain Covid response in the immune system of patients who recovered from Covid. Intriguingly, they discovered the same response in a control group who had never had the virus. This might, they said, point to some “cross-reactive, pre-existing immunity to Sars-CoV-2” in up to 60 per cent of people. It might help explain the mystery of the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship where Covid spread unchecked for a fortnight but only one in five passengers ended up catching it.

Karl Friston, a neuroscientist at University College London, put it well recently: there is some kind of immunological “dark matter” out there stopping the virus from infecting as many of us as had first been feared. No one is quite sure what it is, but it does seem to exist. Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University has made the same argument: that the virus has followed the same pattern worldwide, irrespective of various lockdown policies. Immunity, she says, is more likely to explain its demise.

Yonathan Freund, a professor of emergency medicine at the Sorbonne, has gone further and said a second wave can now be ruled out.

“Many of us realised that a good number of the population do not seem able to contract the virus,” he said recently. “It’s not clear why, but that’s how it is.” The immunological “dark matter” again. His conclusion: lockdown was vital, but the epidemic is over. To test his theory, he says, end lockdown now. “Closely monitor what happens. If it starts again, we will see it very quickly – and take measures.”

It might sound a bit risky but, as Tegnell says, continuing lockdown is also taking a massive risk. There are costs, inflicted on the most vulnerable. A study this week found that the closure of British schools could set back the work of reducing inequality in education by 10 years.

On top of that we have the economic misery that will stunt so many life chances, predominantly of young people. All this may be a price worth paying – but we just don’t know. The world is still waiting for evidence about whether lockdown works. It is, still, a theory.

We can now test that theory. We have enough data on Covid deaths to be able to work backwards, and estimate just how far the virus was spreading. The Norwegians did this last week and found that the virus peaked several days before lockdown. It was, for them, a big finding with big implications: in retrospect, says their health chief, lockdown was not needed. The virus could probably have been controlled with far lighter measures.

Now, the same study has been done for England and Wales. Prof Simon Wood of Bristol University shows the virus was falling fairly quickly by the time of lockdown, having peaked five days earlier. An important point, he says, when considering the “ethical” issues of a second lockdown and whether it would claim more life than it saves. But his study, like all such studies, emphasises how much we still don’t know.

It’s possible the virus is being halted by immunological dark materials. It’s also possible that these dark materials don’t exist, and that we are susceptible to a second wave. We can say that no country that has reopened has seen an overwhelming resurgence of the virus – and that the world has decided that the greater risk lies in staying locked down. The doubt looks like being something we’ll all have to live with.

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