All about defeating the SARS2 coronavirus and the COVID19 disease it causes
For more detailed onjectives and the author's biography, please see https://bit.ly/blogobjectives
PRESS CONFERENCE LED BY PM JOHNSON 28 May 2020
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Henry is the Features Editor at the Financial Times. He summed up concisely what everyone else was saying:
Tomorrow, Saturday 4 July, the government has planned to substantially ease lockdown restrictions for the general community in England. Are we ready? We weren’t. But has the situation improved sufficiently to make these easings? To answer that question, and understand and manage the pandemic in the general community, we need to understand what is happening to new infections. These are also known as “new cases” as a result of “transmission” of the COVID-19 disease by the SARS-COV-2 virus: Whilst death and hospitalisation data is important, these events occur some weeks after transmission, and are therefore not sufficiently timely There is no data directly relating to transmission. All data has an inherent delay, as explained in each case below. In particular: Symptoms do not occur until at least 5 days after infection Testing typically takes 2 days or more to produce results People can remain asymptomatic yet are still contagious. We...
Last night, Prime Minister Johnson made a televised presentation to the UK public. The focus was on England, as the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for their own NHS and their own lockdown arrangements. GENERAL ASSESSMENT I welcome the general tone of the presentation. As I hoped in the the previous post , the intention is to ease lockdown as fast as possible but cautiously. Safety first, otherwise R will rise, infections will soar, and further lockdowns will be necessary. Economic damage would then be worse than easing lockdown carefully. But as has been widely reported today (Monday), the lack of detail has meant widespread confusion and dismay. What was my initial reaction on PM Johnson's "road map"? There are 5 "Alert levels" (hence the "Stay Alert" message). But vague on conditions for each step of the plan. Vague on timescales. Indeed the graphic for what would happen when bore n...
See larger version below My motto for COVID-19 is “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”. This is especially relevant to whether the UK is going to need another lockdown. My assessment as I write on 19 May is that there is at least a 50:50 chance of a lockdown being needed before the end of this May. But I am hoping I am wrong: The R factor will almost certainly be above a national average of 1 before the end of May, which means COVID-19 will be rising exponentially again. It has already risen from an estimate in the range of 0-5-0.9 a week ago to 0.7-1 a week later. Keeping below 1 in the next two weeks seems rather too optimistic. Conversely there will be enormous pressure on the government from their backers and the right-wing press to avoid another lockdown. Despite the risks of a lockdown and leading to far worse economic damage. Yet the government will be keen that the death count will not become even further ahead of the rest of Europe ...
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