Dr. Keith Munro: COVID-19 pandemic has brought out ‘the best and the worst’

The retired medic told the ‘Journal’ that he knows that the past few years have been a difficult time for most people.

“Pandemics have occurred as long as man has been on this planet but this is a particularly bad one because nobody was or is immune to it,” he said.

The former GP - a founder of the Foyle Hospice - pointed to the huge scientifc advances that have been made in such a short space of time.

“The miracle has been that within a year the scientists of the world advanced 50 years in their progress and in their sharing and they have certainly saved millions of lives.”

Dr. Munro expects the SARS-CoV-2 virus to slowly evolve and eventually wane into a less virulent form, noting that it is a cousin of a number of the viruses responsible for what is colloquially known as the ‘common cold.’“From a medical point of view every human being on the planet has to get this whether it is now or in ten years. It will become endemic but it will slow down and become like the annual ‘flu. So we will be able to come out of it alright but these waves will come.”

Like many he has been saddened by some of the irrational responses the pandemic seems to have provoked.

“Unfortunately everybody has the opportunity, especially the untrained scientist, to think, ‘oh, no this is rubbish, it’s a plot, it’s this and that.’ Some people will believe them. That’s another aspect of the thing which is very sad. These catastrophes do bring out the best and the worst.”

The former GP has been struck, however, by the extent to which the adversity of the pandemic has sparked an upsurge in altruistic behaviour and human solidarity.

“Have you noticed in the past year that people have become closer? I would have passed you in the street and said ‘what about ye?’ But you weren’t really interested, you were kind of saying you are in a hurry. But now you stop and say ‘how are you?’ and you mean it.”