THREAD:

WHAT PRICE FREEDOM?

1. There's a sense of restlessness on Twitter that I'm not feeling more locally. The roads are quiet & people are conspicuous by their absence in my village.

The new societal divide is urban/rural instead of leave/remain.

2. I guess people confined to homes with no gardens must feel the walls closing in, whilst outside the warm spring weather beckons one to step outdoors. Ironically we've had 4 months of constant rain over winter when it might have been a pleasure to stop indoors for days on end.

3. We can't help but feel despondent with the number of fatalities. Little is known about the virus & experts who were quite willing to assertively voice their knowledge a fortnight ago are now falling silent as Covid19 remains a mystery.

4. I listened to the Unherd interview a week ago where Professor Johan Giesecke stated that he thought immunity in Sweden was reaching 50%. But the studies in other countries fall far short of that & 3% seems a common statistic.

5. The political strain on Sweden is mounting as their fatalities rise & although 183 deaths on Tuesday doesn't sound a lot compared to our figures, in a population of just over 10 million, it's a high number of losses to bear with a controversial pandemic plan.

6. The countries doing well so far are those who managed to contain & isolate the disease when the number of infected people was low. Quite how that can be sustained in the long term remains to be seen. Sooner or later places need to open up to tourists/visitors again.

7. The big question marks are over the poorest countries, where little is known about how many are infected because testing isn't being carried out in sufficient numbers & in any case the health care is minimal, so testing serves little purpose.

8. Only time will tell if Africa et al will avoid the full force of the pandemic & if so why? What factors (such as climate) provide protection against a virus when all the other factors (such as poor sanitation & overcrowding) point to a catastrophe waiting to unfold?

9. I still pray the summer will do here what the scientists are struggling with & we'll see a decrease in the number of people infected.

I wonder if the government are planning on using the Nightingale hospitals to isolate people if/when the number of infected can be reduced?

10. It seems to me at this point in time that strict isolation is the only way to eventually minimise community transmission & to protect vulnerable family members whom otherwise would have to share a home with an infected person.

11. So even if a patient has mild symptoms, if they can't isolate at home, they will be hospitalised until no longer infectious.

12. My dad recalls the time he had to go to the isolation hospital in Sheffield when he had Scarlet Fever. He was very young but can remember seeing bombs going off over Sheffield & he thought a firework display had been arranged just for him.

13. So a method that was used to prevent the spread of disease during WWII may now be brought out of retirement to prevent the spread of Covid19 once we've got number of people infected down to a manageable amount.

14. If that is the course of action the government decides to take, they will have to do something about passenger flights coming into the country. There's no point in being zealous with Covid19 already in the UK whilst air passengers can reinfect the population continuously.

15. We will be doing what should have taken place back in January had Europe & the WHO acted expeditiously. Ring fence countries & allow the population freedom, but ensure those entering the country are not bringing infection back in.