COVID-19: MAY KEY POINTS BE UNDERSTOOD

Prof Chris Whitty

This was a newspaper headline back on 1 May:

"Ministers warn lockdown could stay for MONTHS until new cases drop to the hundreds - as Prof Chris Whitty says a second peak could be WORSE than the first and eradicating coronavirus is 'technically impossible'."

So let's establish what this means, as the points made are vital for us to understand if we want to defeat the virus:

• "...eradicating coronavirus is 'technically impossible'."  This means there will always be coronavirus somewhere in the world, waiting to re-infect a country even if virus has been eliminated.  We have to learn to live with it.  Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Advisor, recently confirmed this would be the case even with vaccines.
  

• "...lockdown could stay for months..." as we have now experienced, with the music, theatre, sports any other entertainment still locked down

• "...the second peak could be worse than the first..." especially if people get frustrated with the restrictions, or even fight against them as we have seen.

• "...until new cases drop to the hundreds...", at which level most if not all the economy can open.  This is daily new cases under a thousand, around five times lower than the "confirmed new cases" which don't cover all people infected.  So "confirmed new cases" needs to be below around 200 a day, about a quarter of the lowest level reached in England this summer 

Sir Patrick also told the National Security Strategy Committee this week (19 October) that he thought it "unlikely" that a COVID-19 vaccine would be available for "any sort of widespread community use" before at least spring next year.

These are the key aspects behind the idea of a #NearZero strategy.  Whilst elimination of the virus in the British Isles is a good target, it is not a realistic outcome, and we need to learn to live with a very low level of infections below 200 per day.

The benefits of a #NearZero strategy are as follows:

We've then got to get there.  Hence the idea of an Enhanced FireBreak, which aims to eliminate the virus as far as possible in the shortest possible time, to allow most if not all of the economy to re-open for a reasonable period of time.