Saturday, September 19, 2020

Lockdown failed. We must follow the Swedish model and learn to live with Covid

The latest rise in infection should be more of a 'second bump' than a second wave and the response must be proportionate by Mark Woolhouse,Chair of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. Telegraph, 19 September 2020 I knew a second lockdown was on the cards before we’d had the first one. In mid-March my team at the University of Edinburgh modelled a lockdown that ended in June and was followed by a slow, initially imperceptible rise in cases over the summer, culminating in a second lockdown in late September. We knew that scenario was likely because we knew that a lockdown is a short-term fix, not a long term solution. However cautiously we relaxed restrictions the time would come when the epidemic started to take off again. In the UK, that time is now [ .... ] Some kind of response is called for, but it must be proportionate. One suggestion is a ‘circuit breaker’, the social distancing version of a short, sharp shock to drive down incidence over a two-week period. The virus would bounce back in time but we’d have bought a few weeks. It is profoundly disappointing that six months into this pandemic, having rejected every alternative proposed, we keep coming back to lockdown, a strategy that is visibly failing around the world ... Continue reading >>> MORE on Coronavirus [Daily Stirrer] ... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Medium.com ]