Please look at this Table I made from Johns Hopkins and Worldometer and case study data, and consider what it means (1) THREAD

South Korea saw their first ten deaths on Feb 25. They had already started mass testing three days earlier, and effectively suppressed the epidemic within 22 days. Yes, they had partial lockdowns in two hotspot provinces but no national lockdown for the other 15 provinces.(2)

In the UK we saw our first ten deaths by March 13. But the day before the government had stopped all testing and contact tracing in the community, at a time when only 459 cases had been confirmed. SAGE explicit policy was to allow 60% of us to become infected. (3)

Herd immunity would kick in, they said, without evidence, and they reassured us that the mortality rate would be no more than 1% i.e potentially up to a staggering 400,000 deaths. (4)

Within three days they backtracked, ostensibly because modellers said the NHS would be overwhelmed, but also because their projection on deaths was politically unacceptable, given that other countries like China and Korea had already suppressed their epidemics. (5)

But testing and contact tracing was not restarted in less affected communities. Still hasn't. By March 23, ten days later, when lockdown started, confirmed cases had risen almost FIFTEEN fold to 6726 confirmed cases. The true figure in communities was much much higher. (6)

All countries know that the return of viral spread will be a constant risk, from imported cases as the economy opens up, and from renewed outbreaks in the community. (7)

Over the past week Korea has seen an average of 17 new cases daily, Greece 33, China 78, Singapore 839, Germany 2418 and the UK 5047. We are not close to lifting the lockdown. For local outbreaks clearly we need an effective community shield. (8)

By April 19, with a test regime limited to hospitals, 93,000 cases were confirmed, with an unknown number in the population as a whole.(9)

Realistically we must plan for at least a year before a vaccine is available at scale. A scenario of a cycle of national lockdowns will be highly damaging to the economy. (10)

Unless the government is still intent on its herd immunity policy of flattening the curve and allowing the virus to spread, the best option is to mobilise communities and public health teams now for a community shield. (11)

Matt Hancock says he is committed to expansion of testing and contact tracing at national scale. But CMO, deputy CMO, CSA and many on SAGE are lukewarm. (12)

On Sunday April 19, at the daily press briefing, deputy CMO Dr Jenny Harries told us ’the link between testing and deaths is not clear’. We don’t have ’the people’ to do contact tracing she said. Today CMO was also lukewarm on contact tracing. (13)

@neil_ferguson had not modelled community test and trace after being told by PHE, on Jan 28 at first meeting of SAGE, that they had no capacity to do it. So he and Adam Kucharski saw only a scenario of repeated national lockdowns in the March 16 Imperial Report. (14)

By April 5, Ferguson shifted his position. “Almost certainly these additional measures will involve massively ramped up testing, going back to trying to identify contacts of cases and stopping chains of transmission.” I believe @adamkucharski and @JeremyFarrar agree. (15)

On Monday on Radio 4 Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse said “it’s only through testing that we’ll get this virus under control.” So who should we believe? (16)

If we mobilise our national public health + primary care teams NOW for test, trace, isolate, with support from volunteers and communities, we can suppress this virus like S Korea. (17)

Korea's GDP growth rate is still 1% and a week ago the President won a landslide election. Critically, they have a method in place to pick up their handful of cases every day. So do Ireland, Germany and Greece. (18) @GabrielScally

So look again at the Table. The advantage of speed of action is clear. Korea’s test and trace policy brought their epidemic under control within 3 weeks, with just 238 deaths. Greece imposed a national lockdown before their first death and have had only 121 deaths.(19)

The UK and Italy stopped testing in the community too early and the delay between the reporting of the first ten deaths and national lockdown was 10 and 16 days respectively. Neither maintained test/trace. These delays allowed the epidemic to explode. (20)

For Germany, Ireland, Greece and S Korea, their community testing or national lockdowns started before ten deaths had been reported. (21)

We're in limbo. The SAGE is split and the CMO's office is not behind the Minister. It's a recipe for confusion and many further deaths. Are we trying to crush the virus or let it spread? We need to know. The SAGE members must speak out now. @richardhorton1 @devisridhar (22)