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This is a series of threads on the risks of a second wave - and of our response to it.
No. 5 – Three interventions that could save thousands of lives from all causes and help prevent a second lockdown.
No. 5 – Three interventions that could save thousands of lives from all causes and help prevent a second lockdown.
The government need to prioritise those interventions that most reduce the direct and indirect harms from COVID (& therefore decrease the need for more restrictions) while doing the least harm to everything else - particularly other health harms, education, and the economy.
Based on our experience from the first wave, these are three interventions which could save thousands of lives this time:
First, improving the public health messaging and reducing fear.
First, improving the public health messaging and reducing fear.
Thousands died in the first wave and many more suffered at home either because they thought they needed to ‘stay at home’ to ‘protect the NHS’ even when they were seriously ill - or were too scared to come to hospital.
We need to reassure the sick, & ideally provide separate COVID units/hospitals to give them more confidence to attend - which also means keeping COVID hospitalisations at a low enough level to enable this. We must use the capacity of the Nightingales & private hospitals this time
Second, ensuring that all NHS services are kept running while also managing COVID. Millions have suffered, and thousands will die, through the closure of NHS services - which we now know was not necessary and must not happen again.
We must urgently establish the level at which COVID admissions will overwhelm the NHS - not in the sense that we used before (i.e. emergency & critical care beds) - which is no longer a risk - but all other essential services as well.
Third, protecting those at highest risk including care home residents & hospital patients with regular testing & isolation, and ‘smarter shielding.’ This can be much better targeted now with all the data we have & individual ‘COVID risk calculators’ should be urgently rolled-out.
These will help people understand their own risk and make their own informed decisions. It will also help people to overcome their fears and seek medical help when required. These calculators are already available and should be added to the NHS COVID app. and website.
I do not, however, believe this shielding should replace the other measures to suppress the virus in the general population. There is currently not enough evidence to show that it is possible to effectively shield the many millions at higher risk or to reach herd immunity
without significant harm to them, or the lower risk groups where there is increasing evidence of longer-term adverse health effects occurring including in the young and those with mild symptoms. (As well as the indirect harms that will result if hospitalisations become too high.)
