Mar 17, 2020 08:33 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 17, 2020 08:49 PM by C C.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...on/608065/
EXCERPT: . . . “People have misinterpreted the phrase herd immunity as meaning that we’re going to have an epidemic to get people infected,” says Graham Medley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Medley chairs a group of scientists who model the spread of infectious diseases and advise the government on pandemic responses. He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections.
As a consequence, the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim. Indeed, yesterday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated, “Herd immunity is not our goal or policy.” The government’s actual coronavirus action plan, available online, doesn’t mention herd immunity at all. “The messaging has been really confusing, and I think that was really unfortunate,” says Petra Klepac, who is also an infectious-disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “It’s been a case of how not to communicate during an outbreak,” says Devi Sridhar, a public-health specialist at the University of Edinburgh.
Since Thursday, news of stricter impending measures, such as a possible ban on mass gatherings, has been drip-fed to the media piecemeal. For example, yesterday, ITV News reported that the government will soon tell people over 70 to isolate themselves for four months, either at home or in care facilities, “under a wartime-style mobilization effort.” But absent any details, critics were quick to point out flaws in the plan. “Who do you think works at those nursing homes? Highly trained gibbons?” asks Bill Hanage, a British infectious-disease epidemiologist based at Harvard University. “It’s the people who are in that exact age group you are expecting to be infectious.”
The delay in calling for stronger measures is also perplexing. The government has thus far recommended that people with mild symptoms isolate themselves, even though people can clearly spread the virus before symptoms appear. That’s why social distancing is so important. The government’s own action plan even says that it will consider distancing measures “such as school closures, encouraging greater home working [and] reducing the number of large-scale gatherings.” “I think there will be a ramp-up of measures,” Klepac says. “Very soon, we’ll be asking people to reduce their contacts.”(Sure enough, in a press conference on Monday, Johnson said that it is time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others, and that the government will no longer be supporting mass gatherings.)
Why didn’t Johnson just roll out those measures on Thursday? Why wait, when cases are growing exponentially? Medley says the government is taking the long view. “My problem with many countries’ strategies is that they haven’t thought beyond the next month,” he says. “The U.K. is different. We’re at the beginning of a long process, and we’re working out the best way to get there with the least public-health impact.” To him, that means not rushing into panicked decisions about, say, banning soccer games or closing schools “in a way that feels good but isn’t necessarily evidence-based.”
But making a decent long-term strategy is hard when there are still two big unknowns that substantially affect how the pandemic will progress. First, we don’t know how long immunity against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, lasts. When people are infected with OC43 and HKU1—two other coronaviruses that regularly circulate among humans and cause common colds—they stay immune for less than a year. By contrast, immunity against the first SARS virus (from 2003) holds for much longer. No one knows whether SARS-CoV-2 will hew to either of these extremes, and according to one recent study, its behavior could mean anything from annual outbreaks to a decades-long quiet spell... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . “People have misinterpreted the phrase herd immunity as meaning that we’re going to have an epidemic to get people infected,” says Graham Medley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Medley chairs a group of scientists who model the spread of infectious diseases and advise the government on pandemic responses. He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections.
As a consequence, the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim. Indeed, yesterday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated, “Herd immunity is not our goal or policy.” The government’s actual coronavirus action plan, available online, doesn’t mention herd immunity at all. “The messaging has been really confusing, and I think that was really unfortunate,” says Petra Klepac, who is also an infectious-disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “It’s been a case of how not to communicate during an outbreak,” says Devi Sridhar, a public-health specialist at the University of Edinburgh.
Since Thursday, news of stricter impending measures, such as a possible ban on mass gatherings, has been drip-fed to the media piecemeal. For example, yesterday, ITV News reported that the government will soon tell people over 70 to isolate themselves for four months, either at home or in care facilities, “under a wartime-style mobilization effort.” But absent any details, critics were quick to point out flaws in the plan. “Who do you think works at those nursing homes? Highly trained gibbons?” asks Bill Hanage, a British infectious-disease epidemiologist based at Harvard University. “It’s the people who are in that exact age group you are expecting to be infectious.”
The delay in calling for stronger measures is also perplexing. The government has thus far recommended that people with mild symptoms isolate themselves, even though people can clearly spread the virus before symptoms appear. That’s why social distancing is so important. The government’s own action plan even says that it will consider distancing measures “such as school closures, encouraging greater home working [and] reducing the number of large-scale gatherings.” “I think there will be a ramp-up of measures,” Klepac says. “Very soon, we’ll be asking people to reduce their contacts.”(Sure enough, in a press conference on Monday, Johnson said that it is time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others, and that the government will no longer be supporting mass gatherings.)
Why didn’t Johnson just roll out those measures on Thursday? Why wait, when cases are growing exponentially? Medley says the government is taking the long view. “My problem with many countries’ strategies is that they haven’t thought beyond the next month,” he says. “The U.K. is different. We’re at the beginning of a long process, and we’re working out the best way to get there with the least public-health impact.” To him, that means not rushing into panicked decisions about, say, banning soccer games or closing schools “in a way that feels good but isn’t necessarily evidence-based.”
But making a decent long-term strategy is hard when there are still two big unknowns that substantially affect how the pandemic will progress. First, we don’t know how long immunity against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, lasts. When people are infected with OC43 and HKU1—two other coronaviruses that regularly circulate among humans and cause common colds—they stay immune for less than a year. By contrast, immunity against the first SARS virus (from 2003) holds for much longer. No one knows whether SARS-CoV-2 will hew to either of these extremes, and according to one recent study, its behavior could mean anything from annual outbreaks to a decades-long quiet spell... (MORE - details)