'Humanity will survive': a Nobel laureate explained why you should not panic because of a coronavirus

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University and spends most of his time in Tel Aviv, unexpectedly became a household name in China, offering the public a reassurance during the peak of the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic in the country. Writes about this Lechaim.

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Levitt did not find any treatment or medicine, but simply did what he did best: he analyzed the numbers. Statistics led him to conclude that, despite gloomy forecasts, the spread of the virus would be stopped. The reassuring messages that Levitt sent to his friends in China were translated into Chinese and transmitted from person to person, which made him popular.

His predictions turned out to be correct: from February 7, the number of new cases registered every day began to fall. A week later, the mortality rate also began to fall. He may not be a specialist in epidemiology, but in a telephone interview with Calcalist, he confirmed that he knows the calculations and statistics.

Initially, the interview was planned to be held in the fashionable Sarona complex in Tel Aviv, where Levitt currently resides. But after he caught a cold - “not a coronavirus,” he remarked jokingly, “the interview turned into a telephone.” Despite the fact that he believes that the pandemic will pass, Levitt emphasizes that it is necessary to comply with all security measures that are currently being taken.

Levitt received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2013 for "developing multiscale models for complex chemical systems." He was in no way going to be a prophet foretelling the end of the plague; it happened by accident.

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His wife, Shoshan Brosh, is a Chinese art researcher and curator of local photographers. This means that the couple is a whole day between the United States, Israel and China. When the pandemic began, Brosh wrote to friends in China to support them.

“When they responded to us describing how difficult their situation was, I decided to take a closer look at the numbers in hopes of coming to some conclusion,” Levitt explained. — The virus infection rate in Hubei province increased by 30% every day - this is a scary statistic. I'm not a flu expert, but I can analyze the numbers and it's exponential growth."

According to him, at such a pace, the whole world should have been infected within 90 days. But then the trend changed.

When Levitt began analyzing the data on February 1, there were 1800 new cases in Hubei every day, and within six days this number reached 4700.

“And then, on February 7, the number of new cases of infection began to decrease linearly and this decrease did not stop. A week later, the same thing happened with the death toll. This sharp change in the curve marked a midpoint and allowed us to better predict when the pandemic would end. Based on this, I concluded that the situation throughout China will improve within two weeks. Indeed, there are very few new cases of infection right now,” says Levitt.

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Levitt compared the situation with bank interest - if on the first day a person receives a 30% interest rate on his savings, the next day - 29%, etc.: "You understand that in the end you will not make a lot of money."

Messages translated by his friends quickly spread throughout China, and people who wanted to make sure that he really wrote the information attributed to him began to contact Levitt.

“That’s how I realized I needed to keep going,” he said. “I could have said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I said,’ and left it at that.”

Every day, various organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), report new numbers. Levitt began to regularly send reports to his Chinese friends.

According to him, due to the reduction in the number of cases of infection and mortality, the virus is likely to disappear from China by the end of March. Initially, according to Levitt, every patient with coronavirus in China infected an average of 2,2 people per day - this is an exponential growth that can only lead to disaster.

"But then the growth rate began to fall, and the number of new daily infections is now close to zero." He again compared this to interest rates: “even if the interest rate continues to fall, you still earn. The amount you invested does not decrease, but grows more slowly. When it comes to diseases, it is very scary for people because they constantly hear about new cases every day. But the fact that infection rates are slowing means the end of the pandemic is near. ”

According to Levitt, there are several reasons for this.

“In exponential growth models, you assume that new people can become infected every day because you keep meeting new people. But if you consider your own social circle, you basically meet the same people every day. You may meet new people on public transport, but even on a bus, after a while, most passengers will either be infected or immune,” says Levitt.

Another reason the infection rate has slowed is related to physical distance recommendations.

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“Now you're not hugging everyone you meet on the street and you're avoiding coming face to face with someone with a cold, like we did,” Levitt said. - The more you follow this rule, the more you can control the infection. Thus, under these conditions, a carrier of the virus will only infect 1,5 people every three days, and the rate of infection will continue to decline.”

According to Levitt, quarantine is important, but there are other factors.

“We know that China had an almost complete lockdown, with people only leaving home to make essential purchases and avoiding contact with other people. In Wuhan, which had the highest number of cases in Hubei province, everyone had a chance of getting infected, but only 3% got infected, he explained. “Even on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the infection rate did not exceed 20%.”

Based on these statistics, he concluded that many people are simply naturally immune to the virus.

Levitt emphasized that the surge in cases in Italy is troubling, but he estimates that this is the result of a higher percentage of older people among the Italian population than in China, France or Spain.

“Also, Italian culture is very open and Italians have a very busy social life. For these reasons, it is important to isolate people and prevent sick people from coming into contact with healthy people,” the man explained.

According to Levitt, China has done a great job and managed to gain full control of the virus.

“My biggest concern right now is that the US needs to isolate as many people as possible to buy time to prepare. Otherwise, this could lead to a situation where 20000 infected people simultaneously end up in nearby hospitals, and the health care system collapses,” says Levitt.

According to Levitt, Israel currently does not have enough cases to provide the data needed for the assessment, but from what it can say, the Ministry of Health is dealing with the pandemic in the right, positive way: “The tougher the protective measures will be taken, the more they will have time to prepare for the necessary treatment and to develop a vaccine. ”

Levitt avoids making global predictions. In China, he said, the number of new infections will soon reach zero, and South Korea has already overcome the midpoint and can already see the end of the epidemic. Regarding the rest of the world, it's still hard to say.

“This will end when all sick people will only meet those they have already infected. The goal is to avoid the situation that happened on the cruise ship,” he says.

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According to Levitt, Diamond Princess was the worst case scenario.

“If you compare a ship to a country - we're talking about 250 people crammed into one square kilometer, which is terribly crowded. This is four times more crowding than Hong Kong. It's as if the entire population of Israel were crammed into 000 square kilometers,” says Levitt.

In addition, he said, the ship had a central air conditioning and heating system, as well as a common dining room. “These are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus, and yet only 20% have been infected. This is a lot, but it is very similar to the level of infection with ordinary flu. "

According to Levitt, most people dying of coronavirus are over 70 years old.

"It's a known fact that influenza primarily kills older people—about three-quarters of influenza deaths occur in people over 65," Levitt says.

“There are years when the flu rages, like in the US in 2017, when the death rate was three times higher than normal. And yet we did not panic. Here's my message: you should think of coronavirus like a bad flu. It is four to eight times stronger than the common flu, and yet most people will remain healthy and humanity will survive,” Levitt said.

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