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1/ Some thoughts on medium/long term 'exit strategy'. I can't see one without significant drawbacks if, as seems likely, relatively small proportion of population infected with #coronavirus. Very happy to be corrected. Possibilities...
2/ Option A: Slowly lift lockdown measures when peak has subsided eg send kids back to school, reopen shops - but continue social distancing. This will result in second wave of infections, which would have to be followed by another lockdown lasting weeks...
3/ ..There might have to be a third cycle of lockdowns before vaccine arrives. Given economic devastation caused by first lockdown, I can't see UK/US/EU governments going down this route.
4/ Option B. Lockdown until peak subsides. Then rigorous contact tracing, testing, isolation to ensure no second peak. That would involve massive surveillance of the population, using phone apps etc. Akin to South Korea..
5/ This appears to work, and seems to be favoured by some epidemiologists, but I can't see most people in many democracies (UK? USA!!?) tolerating this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51733145 Remains to be seen if UK can get its act together on tests etc too
6/ Option C. Ease lockdown but keep most vulnerable as isolated as possible. Test care workers etc rigorously. Allow economy to restart and slowly return to semi-normal life. This option appears to be gaining favour. But...
7/ I strongly suspect that this was what Vallance was hinting at when he mentioned the trigger words #HerdImmunity The drawback is that unless it is extraordinarily carefully managed with very reliable, stringent testing, you will get many deaths..
8/ Specially as spread in population at large will rise. A vaccine is probably 10+ months away--that's quite a long time to let cases rise. And some healthy, younger people do still get very sick...
9/ Some who have more faith in science than I hope for Option D. We find drugs really soon that alleviate the symptoms and reduce proportion of people dying from the disease. You can then loosen lockdown and return to normality. However...
10/ ...the drugs being tested (I believe) would still require the patient to be hospitalised for treatment (IV drip, careful titration). Even these are months away. The idea that we could get a pill to swallow at home to make this go away seems... optimistic
11/ So there's Option E, which isn't really an option at all but a prayer. That is, because of early silent spread, a large proportion of population has been infected and has immunity. Any second wave would thus be more muted than first. But this isn't a strategy at all...
12/ To know what proportion of population has immunity, we need large scale random testing. This is underway in Munich and I guess we'll have the first picture from that in a few weeks. But we'll probably need more data. And we'd have to be very lucky indeed if this is the case..
13/ So fellow humans, I ask you.... what next?
