Local restrictions have now been imposed across much of northern England and the Midlands, tomorrow’s easings for 1 August have just been deferred, and holiday quarantine has been imposed on Brits returning from places such as Spain.
I should say first that I hate lockdowns as much as the next person. But as shown in this posting , it is a tactic of last resort when other tactics are not enough, and is available to be used when needed.
This is the letter:
In keeping the letter short, I had to omit much of what I was thinking. This posting lets me fill in the gaps, which you can see me saying if you go back to the @COVIDCourier tweets from around that time
The title was “A lockdown plan to save what’s left of summer”
People are now looking ahead to the winter, given that being indoors more will put more pressure on the infection rate. But I saw, and still see. the challenge as being far sooner, over the summer.
The introduction “Your report ‘Exhausted frontline doctors fear second peak’ (June 9) is yet another reason why we cannot take the risk of a resurgence of the virus. A second peak would mean more deaths, more financial damage and more heartbreak.”
The government’s “Protect the NHS” strategy is about not over-running the NHS. It is NOT about saving life. No surprise that the ONS has now reported that excess deaths are far higher than any other country in Europe. England’s strategy is ‘flu thinking’ not ‘SARS thinking’, the virus behind COVID-19 being SARS-COV-2, related to the original SARS virus.
The letter continued “A second lockdown would be unavoidable to contain it [a second peak]. Why wait? We’ve already seen the damage that delaying a lockdown causes by being too late. With R [number for] transmission, now hovering around 1.0 in some regions, and hospitals such as Weston-super-Mare already overrun, do we really want a summer like that?”
Discussion in the last week or so has been whether lockdown on 23 March should have been on 16 March or earlier. The near-universal agreement is full lockdown at least a week too late, causing thousands of avoidable deaths. The regional part meant do we want to live under the threat of local lockdowns, through the summer and beyond? Dependent on region, R has remained around 1.0, just below, or indeed above. Here are the latest figures:
The letter continued “By locking down now and aiming for an R of 0.5 the maths says we would be down to nearly no new cases by the end of June or early July. Then we could open the economy while adopting the best possible anti-transmission techniques to keep COVID-19 at bay. Indeed, that is the only way to save the summer.”
That is according to this graph:
It has since been shown that the lockdown had an R value of 0.57, and achieved a five sixths reduction in daily infections before levelling off. A more detailed discussion of of R and the R-based Change Factor is given here.
To get new cases down to near zero, only a second lockdown would get R down low enough to get infections down quickly enough. The justification for a second lockdown was fourfold, and still is :
- The sooner we can get new cases down, the fewer deaths would occur. With the extra advantage, as it turns out, of reducing those surviving but suffering from masty LongCOVID symptoms for months, which some people think will be a bigger problem than deaths [links to follow]
- Very low cases means greater public confidence for people to go out, needed for the economy to recover, and to send their kids back to school
- On timing, a large set of lockdown easings was slated for 4 July. A very low level of infections would have made it safer to make those easings. They went ahead on 1 July, but that was too early. No surprise new infections immediately increased, so now the 1 August easings have been deferred
- Timing was also in the context of state schools breaking up around 17 July, and private schools a week or so earlier. Finishing the lockdown by early July would have saved the tourism industry here and abroad
Indeed my concern was that holiday destinations like the Spanish Balearic Islands, that had achieved a near zero level of infections, would refuse to accept British tourists unless the UK infection rate was much lower. Ironic then that it’s the British government that has caught the Balearics up in a blanket two-week quarantine for Brits returning from Spain. Unfair and inappropriate. So watch this space.
I was also concerned that staycation areas such as the West Country and Lake District were already sending out distress signals that they feared being overrun by infectious guests from other parts of the UK. Might the police even be forced to close the main roads into these and similar areas? That could still happen.
It is still possible to do a second lockdown, but:
- With cases now rising, the longer a lockdown is delayed, the higher the infection level at the start, and the longer a lockdown would be needed.
- If done before schools go back in September, the lockdown would be needed in August, and disrupt the summer
- If done any later, infection levels would be too high for schools to go back. Remember schools are more about the adults than the kids. Teachers, other staff and parents in close proximity. Plus kids taking infections home – which hasn’t yet been ruled out – especially dangerous for multi-generation households in which older folk are more at risk of death
The Independent Sage group , which consists of former SAGE members and other senior academics, are recommending:
- A ZeroCOVID strategy, or “TowardsZero” which is what Ireland and Scotland are already following. That is aiming for zero, getting down to no more than 1 new infection a day per million population. and dealing with any local outbreaks. Or preferably 1 per day per region, meaning 8 for England per day. So #NearZero . PM Johnson today reported ONS now estimate 4200 new infections a day in England, equivalent to 76 new cases per million. Far too high, when Scotland and Ireland are already each down to a mere handful of new infections, and consistently reporting zero daily deaths
- In which they support my contention that such a strategy would “allow all social distancing easures to be lifted, schools to be fully open, the hospitality and entertainment industries to reopen fully, revitalisation of the economy and a sense of much needed normality for the population"
- Achieved by boosting the NHS Test and Trace service to a far higher level. But being academics that overlooks that in practice this is unachievable in effectiveness, timescale and cost. So a lockdown as I have suggested is the only reliable solution.
IN CONCLUSION
England’s strategy of allowing COVID-19 cases to be as high as the NHS can handle, without adopting a Near Zero strategy. is preventing England getting back to normal. It is perpetuating a level of infection in every region of Engalnd that is too high and means local lockdowns, delayed easings, and is putting at risk the objective of getting schools back safely in September.
The need for a "Near Zero" strategy is endorsed by Independent SAGE, which they call “Towards Zero” and “Zero COVID”. But it is impractical to scale up the Test and Trace service adequately, as they suggest, so the only reliable mechanism is a second lockdown. That is still relevant.
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