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I find it odd that I have to spell this out, but here goes. The "exit" in "exit strategy" is not exit from lockdown. It is exit from the coronavirus crisis - ie a plan for how we make these events end & return to normal life without COVID-19 deaths exploding in number thereafter.
There are conceptually speaking only 4 forms an exit strategy cld take.
- The disease ends (eg containment exterminates it)
- No-one can catch it (eg a vaccine)
- Everyone who's going to catch it already did (herd immunity)
- Folk can catch it but we can treat it (therapies)
- The disease ends (eg containment exterminates it)
- No-one can catch it (eg a vaccine)
- Everyone who's going to catch it already did (herd immunity)
- Folk can catch it but we can treat it (therapies)
An exit strategy specifies which 1 or more of these the govt targets, & at what points it plans to give up on 1 target & switch to another.+
eg The govt cld say: We intend to give the option of therapies 6 months. If there are no promising therapies after 3 mths we wld be planning to switch to planning for delivering herd immunity commencing from 6 mths.+
Again, the govt cld say: We plan to maintain as tight a lockdown as is socially & economically feasible until an effective vaccine is produced, but if that has not occurred after 18 mths we wld switch to seeking to rely upon whatever therapies had bn developed by that point.+
Again, the govt cld say: We intend to achieve herd immunity by allowing multiple waves of gradual spread in short bursts of a month or so, calibrated such that NHS capacity is not overwhelmed, in a Sawtooth executed over a 12 mth period.+
Again, the govt cld say: We aim to achieve herd immunity through a combination of controlled bursts & young, fit volunteers who choose to be infected with low load doses.+
Again, the govt cld say: We intend to maintain a v strict lockdown over an extended period until case numbers fall low enough to allow domestic extermination, then ban international travel into the UK until an effective vaccine is achieved even if that is many years away.
These different strategies are executed over v different timescales with profoundly different implications for human freedom & welfare in the meantime, as well as for economic prosperity, & involve v different levels of death. We need to know which the govt intends to try.
It is desperately urgent for the govt to spell out an exit strategy. With no strategy there is no hope & no basis for people to plan their personal or economic lives. We need to know the plan. Of course it cld change. But we need to know what it is & if we dislike it, debate it.
