I was a coronavirus sceptic. My father died on Monday morning – John McLellan

The ratio of deaths to cases of Covid-19 should concentrate minds about the need for social distancing, writes John McLellan, following the death of his 86-year-old father.

Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where John McLellan's father was being looked after (Picture: John Devlin)

As the pandemic steadily takes its toll, more and more people will feel its effects more directly than just not being able to go out to the pub or the cinema.

I have admitted here before that my natural scepticism about the early claims soon disappeared the more I looked into the statistics behind the spread of the disease and the potential impact on the health service.

But even though a modest estimate of likely fatalities produces frightening numbers, nobody really expects to become a number themselves.

If the Prime Minister’s experience was a jolt, so too is every story of the death of relatively youthful people with no prior health problems.

While thousands of people may have been infected without realising, the known statistics show the ratio of fatality to infection is now approaching one in ten which will do more than anything to concentrate minds about social distancing.

It certainly made me think twice about visiting my 86-year-old father in hospital after he was tested positive, even though the staff at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth were quite happy for me to visit as long as I wore the mask, apron and gown.

On Sunday I got the call that he was struggling, went through to see him, and I didn’t need medical qualifications to know there would only be one outcome. He died on Monday morning.