- Ignoring the advice from SAGE on 21 September to do a national lockdown. We now see some hospitals already with more COVID patients than at the peak of the first wave
- A lockdown which is half-hearted, as I'll explain
Professor Chris Whitty was at pains to point out the drawbacks of a lockdown, and quite rightly so. We looked at the painful 'side-effects' of lockdown here. It is therefore important to keep any lockdown short. Four weeks as proposed is too long. Three weeks tops.
It's four weeks rather than two or three weeks because a number of activities that ought to be closed are being allowed to stay open:
- Various businesses and organisations
- Schools
Isn't it good news that schools will remain open? Yes, until you realise that a significant proportion of schools are either closed as a result of COVID, or have sent children home. Better to drive infections down so schools can stay open with confidence.
Which highlights a key point. The choice isn't between COVID and the economy/education, it is a choice between:
- High COVID with high costs economically, education, lives and livelihoods, and
- Very low COVID with low such costs
AN ENHANCED FIREBREAK
As set out here, an Enhanced FireBreak of 17-21 days would have been a far better approach. That is:
- 17-21 days maximum, non-extendable
- All non-vital businesses and activities closed
- Everybody encouraged to self-isolate when at all possible, though with exercise permitted
This approach leverages the life-cycle of the virus, in that:
- People display symptoms after typically 5 days, but can be 14 days or so.
- People will infect other members of their household within a few days
- Hence 17-21 days mass self-isolation
- Anyone displaying symptoms at the end of that period would continue to self-isolate for a few days longer
PM JOHNSON'S APPROACH
By keeping so much of the economy open, as PM Johnson proposes, the mass self-isolation effect is undermined. So there is less of an effect on driving down the virus, even over a longer period.
WHAT ENGLAND SHOULD HAVE DONE
England should have moved with Wales with a FireBreak to make use of the half term break.
Too little, too late. We need an Enhanced FireBreak like this.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I'm able to
take a 360 degree view of the COVID-19 situation having a background in
science, business processes, finance and much else besides:
- For the last 40 years I have been solving problems and implementing solutions for Board level personnel in FTSE, AIM, private and start-up businesses. Plus the UK subsidiaries of multinationals such as Sony and Alcatel, including doubling profits of their UK business
- That work is leveraging technical, financial, systems, commercial and people expertise and understanding. Often for biotech and other hi-tech businesses.
- This is based on being:
- Achiever of top Oxbridge degree in sciences, including cells, genetics, chemistry and spectroscopy
- The
Thames Valley overall first prizewinner in final ICAEW examinations,
covering all the various financial and management subjects
- Member of Institute of Management Consultants
The
tough problems require taking a 360 degree view of the situation, and
all the available evidence, before proposing a solution. I only ever
propose a solution that I would be happy to implement.
In that sense, how best to tackle COVID-19 is just another problem. Not as tricky as some I have solved, which had stumped other CAs or the directors thought the problem was insoluble.
That's not to say how best to tackle COVID-19 is easy. There is no painless solution. But balancing lives, livelihoods and the economy to allow education, the health system and business to flourish, whilst minimising the net cost to the Treasury, does have a far better solution than the UK government has followed, as outlined above.
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