Looking through the window of hope: A better post-Covid19 world beckons

Most readers of this blog will not remember the Window Tax. Probably because it was first introduced in the UK in 1696 and then repealed in 1851. It was a tax that was deeply disliked, but all houses with more than 10 windows had to pay it. Sounds like a lot of windows doesn’t it? Having counted ours, and we live in a normal (some might say quirky) average sized house, we have 34 windows. That doesn’t take into account the conservatory (or Sunshine Room as we like to call it). In today’s money, having this many windows would cost us £168 a year if the Window Tax was still in force, which I have to say would be a lot cheaper than today’s Council Tax!

Back then it was the landlord who was responsible for paying the tax. A responsibility that was passed on to tenants in higher rents. Often resentment at having to pay the tax resulted in windows being bricked up or, in new buildings, simply not putting in sufficient numbers of windows. In 1766, the tax was extended to include houses with seven or more windows. The result was the number of houses with exactly seven windows reduced by 60%. The Window Tax was a forerunner of the equally unfair and unpopular Poll Tax. Readers under the age of 30 might need to ask their parents about the Poll Tax, but suffice to say there was rioting on the streets at its introduction.

For many people, there were often dreadful population health consequences of the Window Tax. Living in houses without sufficient light and ventilation, resulted in large numbers of people becoming high risk victims of epidemics such as smallpox, cholera and typhoid. It was a harmful and unfair tax for the poor to bear. It was said to be a tax on health, fresh air and light.

Now you might be wondering where this trip back in history is taking you. Well fast forward to 2021 and here we are, in the throes still of a pandemic more virulent than cholera, typhoid, and possibly smallpox too. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate that 120,000 people a year die from cholera, 140,000 from typhoid, and until its eradication in 1980, smallpox had killed some 300 million people during the 20th century. At 04.30 CET this morning, the WHO were reporting 1,906,606 deaths of people from Covid19 (and that is yesterdays figure and only those officially reported to them). Later on today you will find up-dates here. Hopefully the various Covid19 vaccines will enable the world to more effectively deal with the disease.

However, whilst we also have a vaccine for smallpox, the world still has little herd immunity to that disease. While not wishing to be a scaremonger, two WHO-approved laboratories still hold the last remaining stocks of smallpox; one laboratory is in Russia, the other in the US. Personally, I can’t think of two more worse places for storing such a lethal virus. Well OK, I guess North Korea…

But back to that tax on health, fresh air and light. Last week I read the wonderful story of Dr Fresh Air. Dr Fresh Air (real name Eilir Hughes) is a GP working in North Wales. He has long been a campaigner for adding the word ‘replace’ to the more familiar ‘hands, space, face’ slogan. Dr Fresh Air believes that replacing stale air in a room with fresh air from outside reduces immensely the risk of people becoming infected with the Covid19 virus. We have all become accustomed to washing our hands (more often than before), and maintaining the 2m social distancing spaces between each other. Mask wearing has become almost ubiquitous (unless you are someone famous, a politician, plain stupid or all three). However, as our understanding of Covid19 has grown, a new risk has become apparent – that of the tiny virus particles (known as aerosols) lingering in the air.

The now famous South Korean study showed emphatically that the virus can travel and infect others much further afield than the 2m social distancing safe space recommended. Sadly, these days many buildings are constructed with windows that don’t open. It’s not just offices, but apartments who rely on air-conditioning rather than having windows that might be opened. Whilst air-conditioning itself is safe, the way it moves air around in an unventilated room is a problem. The South Korean study showed how the air flow from the air-conditioning moved the virus particles around the restaurant, leaving a discernible pathway of infections in its wake. I have to say one of the things I have missed most about the lockdowns and the Tier restrictions has been not being able to go out to eat. However, in following the science, I’m now glad I haven’t been able to eat out. Truly ‘eating in’ has become the new ‘eating out’ as far as we are concerned in this house.

Opening a window and allowing fresh air in can significantly help reduce this risk of infection. However, not only are we in the throes of a pandemic, but we are in the middle of Winter, and it’s cold. Leaving a window open all day is not something many of us probably fancy doing. Indeed, in the weeks leading up to Christmas last year, we had builders in the house for 3 weeks. They had a daily routine. Arriving around 8.15, they would turn on the radio, boil a kettle (unusually, they brought all their own tea-making essentials) and opened every window and door in the ground floor of the house. Usually by 8.30, I was both fed up with listening to Wave Radio and freezing cold – and don’t get me started about the dust.

By the time they left at 3pm, I would be like the proverbial block of ice, and looked like a Michelin Man with all the added jumpers I had put on during the day. Our builders knew that as well as social distancing and mask wearing, fresh air and good ventilation were essential to keeping us and them safe. We don’t have to go to the same extremes as our builders to reduce our risk of infection. Opening windows once or twice a day is probably just as good and saves on the amount of the thermal underwear you might need to wear.

And in the strange way these things sometime happen, yesterday we received a long letter of apology from our window suppliers. They were saying sorry for the delays in getting our replacement windows to us and fitted. We ordered them in late September last year, but Covid19 had severely impacted upon their suppliers. Whichever way you look at it (or in the case of windows, through it), Covid19 has and continues to, impact upon all our lives. But there is good news. We now have a vaccine and increasing numbers of people are being vaccinated, and our new windows are now due to be fitted next week. As Confucius almost said, we may live in a small and quirky house, but our windows look out on a very large world, a world full of hope.