COVID-19: ISN'T SATURDAY NIGHT THE TIME TO PARTY?

Only half the lights

I've just returned from a walk circuit that I have done right through lockdown.  Gives me 7Cs on my food score. Up to the top of the park, down the park, and ending up walking up one of the most vibrant streets in the country on a Saturday evening.  At least it used to be.

Just as the sunset was finishing, this would usually be a bustling place of excitement.  But a lot of the lights are off.

My favourite restaurant is only doing collections, my favourite live music and cocktail bar is still closed, as is the main provincial O2 live music venue.  Venues like these will be the last businesses to re-open.



"This is just an interval" it says.  Right to be optimistic.  But we also need to be realistic.

A restaurant that had the front doors folded back open for ventilation was best part full, albeit with distanced tables.  Other restaurants that didn't look as 'COVID secure' were only part full, when used to be packed.  The pubs open, but nowhere near as busy.

Of course nobody in the restaurants or pubs was wearing a mask.  You can't eat or drink if you're wearing one.  At least not current designs.  People sitting at tables not social distancing and not wearing masks undermines the safety rules.

Until infection rates are right down that is a problem.  Certainly for me and many others. I have a simple rule at the moment.  Outdoors not indoors.  Food shopping with masks the only exception.


Why be so cautious?  Why not get everything open?  How long will this all last?  In reverse order:


HOW LONG WILL THIS ALL LAST?

The World Health Organisation has just suggested two years, just like the great influenza pandemic at the end of the First World War. Though Sir Mark Walport of the SAGE Scientific Advisory Group countered that COVID-19 will be present "forever in some form or another".  Exactly my view from the early stages of this pandemic.

Vaccine or no vaccine, we will have to find ways to live with COVID-19.  Increasingly people are saying only by keeping infection very low, #NearZero.  That means aiming for zero, minimising viruses coming in from abroad, and dealng with any outbreaks that do occur.


WHY NOT GET EVERYTHING OPEN?

Fundamentally for these reasons:

• COVID-19 spreads principally through the air on the water microdroplets ("aerosols") in people's breath.  Groups of people, especially large groups in entertainment venues, provide the opportunity for one infectious person to infect many others.  
• People can be infectious before they know it, because they are not displaying symptoms.  This is either because they are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic
• If we don't take precautions, including keeping such venues closed, infection rates will rise such that hospitals will quickly become overrun
• There are six key risks in catching COVID-19.  Whilst death is less of a problem for the under 50s, LongCOVID is adversely affecting more than half of people infected, of all ages including children.  

WHY AM I SO CAUTIOUS?

Given the six risks of COVID-19, I don't want to catch COVID-19 thank you very much.  Infection rates have got to get very low for me to be prepared to go indoors, with little chance of someone else there being infectious.


THE ADVANTAGES OF VERY LOW INFECTION RATES

A very low infection rate is needed to get all of normal life back:

• Allow schools to stay open and give parents confidence to send their children to school
  
• Give people confidence to go out, use public transport, and go indoors with strangers
• Allow people who have been shielding to go out safely
• Allow testing to be carried out in a pragmatic way, with proposals contained in this blogpost
• Allow entertainment venues to re-open, as discussed above

So only a strategy to get to a #NearZero very low infection rate is sensible.  It is that simple.