Coronavirus: prerequisites for lifting the lockdown in the UK

Living in West London during the lockdown imposed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak is a surreal experience. Normal existence, as we knew it less than two months ago, seems to have happened in another life. Some of us older people lived through the nervous uncertainties of the Cold War, and we all look with some trepidation at the looming challenges posed by climate change. But this is something completely different.

As a 58-year-old man with diabetes, I am more vulnerable to this virus. Like my son’s, who is asthmatic. None of us are among the 1.5 million most vulnerable identified by the UK government, but we are open enough to complications to have voluntarily gone into more or less complete isolation, along with the rest of the family who supports. Various in-laws and outlaws seem to be doing everything they can to tempt us out into the dangerous afterlife, but so far we’re holding our own.

readily available data

I am not a virologist or an epidemiologist. I’m not even a statistician. But I have an O level in Mathematics. And while this achievement may be modest in the larger scheme of academia, it’s enough to allow me to identify trends and draw conclusions from data that’s readily available to anyone with an Internet connection and a working knowledge of Google. That is why I shudder at the obvious bewilderment of many of those commentators who pass for experts.

Throughout its handling of the crisis, my administration has wanted to emphasize that it is “following the science.” Political spokesmen are invariably accompanied during briefings by highly ordered and esteemed medical and scientific advisers. And yet, what passes as the best scientific advice one day seems to be forgotten the next. Thus, our initial reluctance to call off large sporting events was based on “scientific advice” that there was no evidence that large crowds of people close together presented an ideal environment in which a virus could spread, only for it to be released. contrary advice just a little earlier. day or two later. Also pubs and restaurants. “Following the science” has even been offered as an explanation for deficiencies in the supply of protective equipment to frontline workers and in testing capacity. One could be forgiven for wondering if politics was being informed by science, or vice versa.

long tray

That was then. Today we are locked up and the discussion has turned to how we are going to get out of it. Inevitably, there’s a lot of nervous navel gazing when you realize how great and good, political and scientific, that a dynamic market economy cannot stay in suspended animation forever. So where does it all go from here?

If one wants to know what is likely to happen in the future, the past and indeed the present often serve as useful guides. And enough information can be found in the statistical data we have collected from the initial outbreak in Wuhan, through the pre-lockdown exponential increases in the number of infections and deaths and even the more welcome signs that have recently begun to emerge from Italy. and Spain, to give us an idea of ​​where we are going.

First, the long plateau followed by a gradual decline in the numbers reflects the less drastic approach taken by the European democracies than that taken by China. When crisis hits, there may be a price to pay for enjoying the benefits of a free and open society. In southern Europe, the decline from the “peak” of the outbreak is noticeably slower than the original rise. With the UK lockdown being less severe even than Spain’s or Italy’s, the unfortunate fact is that we can expect our recovery from this first peak, when it comes, to be even more laborious.

The reproduction number

The basic reproduction number is the mathematical term used by epidemiologists to quantify the infection rate of any virus or disease. Experts have calculated that, when unchallenged, the reproduction number (or R0) of Covid-19 is around 2.5. This means that each infected person will, on average, transmit the virus to 2.5 other people, causing exponential spread.

Lockdowns, public awareness campaigns, and social distancing measures all aim to bring R0 below 1.0, thus reducing over time and eventually stopping the spread of infection. To induce a decrease in infections as fast as a 2.5-fold increase, the number would need to be reduced to 0.4 (or 1 divided by 2.5). A preliminary study by a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has calculated that in the UK the current R0 of the virus is around 0.62, which, if accurate and holding, would mean that the virus will slow down, albeit at a slower rate than its original acceleration.

There is also more good news. British-American-Israeli Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Michael Levitt, who runs a lab at Stanford University in California, points out that the R0 of a virus naturally decreases over time due to the tendency of people to move around within it. finite social circles, increasingly restricting the number of new contacts you will find. Coupled with a deliberate strategy of social distancing, this will further reduce the spread.

facelift restrictions

So far so good, if anything good can be said about a global pandemic that, at the time of writing, has already claimed the lives of over a hundred thousand people. But the challenge now is how to lift the restrictions and start resuming something close to normal without the infection rate rising rapidly again. Neither the needs of the economy nor human nature will allow life to stop indefinitely.

One imagines, or at least hopes, that any significant relaxation of restrictions will inevitably follow a reduction in new infections to a much more manageable number than the current one. When it does happen, however, the goal should be to keep new infections below R1. Without achieving this, a second wave is inevitable.

The lesson that the initial spread of the virus taught us is sobering. Then the contagion was taking place in a city in a country far away from home, and yet in little more than a month it had broken out to engulf the entire planet. Now, with 240 separate nations battling the virus at different stages of development, any measure any country takes to prevent it from returning within its borders would have to be extraordinary.

learning from experience

On the other side of the coin, at least in this short space of time we have gained valuable knowledge and experience. Where Western countries, with the partial exception of Germany, were unable to rigorously enough test, track and trace the pathogen when it first descended on us, hopefully we’ll be better equipped to do so the second time around. Mobile applications are already being developed to help us in this process, although it would be a denial of duty to allow our policy to depend solely on their use to the exclusion of other complementary strategies.

One imagines that the limited travel allowed to resume between nations will, for the time being at least, be subject to virus testing of passengers, including returning British citizens, at the point of departure or entry, or else to the implementation of a mandatory quarantine period for all travelers. Without such drastic action, it’s hard to see how a contact tracing and tracking program can hope to succeed.

More than anything else, there will need to be global cooperation and coordination at all levels. A global pandemic can only be effectively addressed through joint global strategic action. Even a rogue nation that refuses to play by the rules will risk jeopardizing the efforts of all nations.

Antivirals and vaccines

Ultimately, we can only contain the threat as best we can until a vaccine arrives. However, before this can happen, it is possible that antiviral drugs, whether new or modified, will be a game changer by allowing the disease that arises from the infection to be treated before it becomes serious or even fatal. Removing the grim unpredictability of the coronavirus will allow the world the luxury of enjoying something of a normal existence without too much fear.

The lifting of the lockdown should be seen as the first stage of the end game, not a poorly planned panic measure driven by the needs of the economy. Handled correctly, it offers a second chance to rectify the mistakes that allowed the virus to break out in the first place. Being caught sleeping the first time was awkward, doing it again would be absolutely inexcusable.