I was lucky. Only four people who I loved died. It was bewildering to be caught up in so much illness and death. Over 10,000 died in the UK alone before there was effective treatment. To begin with it was pneumonia that took them; in time they got better at managing that. We had so many questions: why is the government so slow to respond? Why aren’t there the resources in the healthcare system to manage this? Why are my loved ones expendable? Why am I?
In the early '80s, as AIDS took hold, we whispered these questions amongst ourselves. The similarities between the coronavirus pandemic and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are obvious.
In those early years of AIDS, there were people who realised what was happening and sought in vain to warn key decision-makers. It is the same with COVID-19. Some experts very early on drew analogies between AIDS and hepatitis B: AIDS was following a similar pattern of spread. They were ignored by people with power. Had they been listened to vast numbers of lives could have been saved.
