COVID-19: COMPARING #NEARZERO TO GOVERNMENT APPROACH

Let's get music venues open

Note: This was written before PM Johnson's speech to House of Commons 22/9/20
Update 24/9/20 after Chancellor Sunak announced financial support measures.  In tital, the fundamental Government policy has not changed significantly enough for this analysis to need adjustment: 

Over the last 6 months the UK Government has arguably done too little too late, and decisive action is now needed.

We've previously looked at the benefits of #NearZero strategy.  To get life back to near-normal before the arrival of a safe and effective vaccine.  That would include ending the "interval" in live entertainment, the most difficult industry to unlock.

We need to find the best balance between lives, livelihoods and life.

Here's the comparison of #NearZero to where we find ourselves after six months of this Government's "Too little too late" policies:

ISSUE	#NEARZERO	TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
Risk of meeting someone infectious	Low risk	Unacceptable, increasing risk
Deaths	Low number	Increasing number
LongCOVID	Low number	Increasing number
Testing capacity constraints	Keep within	Overload testing capacity
Do ‘normal’ activities	Most normal activities	Increasingly stopped
Shielding people	Let them get back to life	Back to shielding (or ought to be)
Indoors – restaurants, pubs, etc	Safe	Increasingly unsafe
Nightlife - theatres, concerts, gigs, nightclubs	Open in accordance with NTIA guidance	Stay closed
Sports events	Attend them	Not attend events, have to stop them
Preparation for winter	Prepared	Unprepared
NHS staff	Protecting them	Overloaded
Universities	Keep open, face to face	Risk of closure
Schools	Keep open	Start-stop pupils being sent home
Parents	Keep at work	Start-stop at home to look after kids, catch disease
Public transport	Be safe, with masks	Unsafe
Workplaces	Keep open	Stop/start, unable to plan
All leading to:
Economy	Grow quickly	Stunted

Here are the benefits of #NearZero in diagrammatic form:

THE SWEDISH APPROACH

Some people are suggesting that we should now follow the Swedish approach.  That was actually similar to how the UK Government started in February/March. but there are some key reasons why that approach would not work in UK, neither then nor now:

• In the UK, there was a bigger threat of the NHS being overrun.  
• Even with the additional capacity of the Nightingale hospitals, that is still the case, with the additional consequence of very high death numbers again
• The Swedish culture is more about looking after one another than in UK.  They had a voluntary lockdown, for example with as little internal travel as  neighbouring countries
• They stopped gatherings of more than 50 people
• They kept most schools open, but closed educational estanlishments for the over 16s
  

The best alternative is to drive down infections to #NearZero


GETTING TO #NEARZERO

Whatever the measures needed to get to #NearZero, the benefits in lives, livelihoods and economy can only be achieved with a financial investment from the UK Government.  The payback to the Treasury of a stronger economic recovery would be massive.

Public information and education needs to step up a gear, explaining and persuading through the whys not just the whats.  The only way to get to #NearZero and importantly stay there.

We can't drift on like this.  Let's get to #NearZero, open the economy and benefit in so many ways!

Here's a more detailed analysis.

Update 22/9/20: PM Johnson has now announced various changes to national restrictions , subject to debate "next week"