My thoughts on #covid19 lockdown are constantly evolving. Now they are:

(1) Lockdown in UK was necessary

(2) The ‘side-effects’ of this ‘medicine’ are awful. Not just financial, but also social and medical.

(3) We need to exit lockdown as soon as possible but only if safely
(4) The SARS2 coronavirus behind #COVID19 is highly infectious. We risk second and subsequent waves of infection. We should assume the virus will never be eradicated.

(5) So we have to learn to live with it

(6) Now significant doubts about immunity. Best to assume none.
(7) Vaccines, meds and mass testing are months away, and are not guaranteed

(8) In the meantime, and as a stopgap, we need simple and quick techniques to relax and exit lockdown

(9) Lockdown reduces transmission, measured by Ro. Stopgap techniques need to do the same.
(10) So what do we already know that can reduce transmission Ro ?

(11) Simple Source Control masks. “My mask protects you, your mask protects me”

(12) But we need other ideas to relax and exit lockdown ‘safely’
(13) What does ‘safely’ mean? If we are to get back to any normality, that can’t necessarily be perfectly. Some risk may well have to be accepted, however unpalatable.

(14) Some 10000 people die in the UK each year from flu, so we never have expected perfection.
(15) But we still have to aim for the minimum number of deaths.

(16) We need innovative ideas to reduce transmission Ro, and otherwise tackle the SARS2 virus

(17) We need a team focused on finding, evaluating and testing ideas.
(18) The Lockdown Exit Strategy and Plan needs to incorporate workable stopgap ideas, together with hopes for vaccines, meds and mass testing

(19) That needs a multi-disciplinary team to coordinate the initiatives and develop the Strategy. A Task Force beyond just vaccines
(20) And to reiterate, lockdown should not be relaxed without adopting alternative ideas to do so safely

(21) We need a multi-disciplinary Task Force to develop a Lockdown Exit Strategy and Plan, co-ordinating all underlying initiatives

[ends]
P.S. The government also needs to do more in respect of financial support during the lockdown, and do it more quickly. But that’s a whole other discussion
You can follow @CharleyChetto.
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