The R0 of Portland Street

Early in 2012 a major motion picture hit cinemas across the world and, from outside looking in, it didn’t sound like a movie you could slurp-a-Slushy to or munch on savoury popcorn. In the old days, this was known as a disaster movie, and indeed this production did exactly what it said on the tin. It was called Contagion and, with its massive and alphabetically ordered ensemble cast, its main entertainment value was in working out who was going to be ‘contaged’ next. And, in fairness, the process of elimination (pun intended!) was so obvious!

Now, the reason for this bogus introduction is that there was an important point of discovery - that any pandemic has an overall contagion value called the R0 (the Are Nought!). This is the basic reproduction number based on the average number of individuals each infected individual will infect in a population that has no immunity to the (designated) disease. Get it?

OK, to the nub of the piece! It appears as if our Portland Street HQ generates its own R0 value. Since November 2012, Idealogy has experienced an epidemic of illness amongst the team that has, at times, felt as if we have been fighting a force of nature beyond our comprehension and control. Do the math…

12 of our team have had long-term, repeatable colds and influenza over the period from November to Easter. 3 or 4 (it’s hard to tell, they are still in ICU) have had kidney and chest infections. Others have tried to get on the IRILLERTHANU list with coughs, Norovirus (we think!), Sinusitis, Headaches, Migraines, Conjunctivitis, Man-flu (many, many serious outbreaks), Gastroenteritis, nose bleeds and several other conditions we’d rather not mention. Also, sad to tell, we now have an addiction problem - many of us have developed an unhealthy reliance on Jakemans Throat & Chest Sweets – (60p a bag from Boots) – marvellous.

So, lets examine the facts before we lay the blame firmly at the door of the latest Bird Flu pandemic spreading over the Far East (but probably not allowed into North Korea!) called, rather catchily we think, H7N9.

FACT. This has been, arguably, the longest, most severe winter of our generation, especially if you factor in the cold temperatures. FACT. Weirdly, it’s also been one of the wettest and most depressing in living memory. FACT.  Our boiler was out of action for somewhere between 3-4 weeks post-Christmas, coinciding, coincidentally, with one of the cold snaps. FACT. The tell tale signs of hygroscopic salts appearing on our top floor paintwork (look it up!). Yes, we think we have all the evidence we need. We also think that we are becoming victims of our environment – either that or we are a bunch of very unfit wusses!

We’ll let you choose!