May 7, 2020

expert reaction to comment by Prof John Edmunds at a Science and Technology Select Committee session that the R number in the UK is higher than it was two weeks ago

Prof John Edmunds, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), commented at a Science and Technology Select Committee session on 7th May that R value for COVID-19 in the UK was higher than it was two weeks before.

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, UEA, said:

“That R has increased over the past two weeks is not surprising given the reported problems in care homes. It has been known for quite some time that control of infection from other infectious diseases, such as influenza and norovirus, in care homes can be very challenging. During outbreaks of Norovirus it can be almost impossible to stop the rapid spread of the infection amongst residents and staff. Even containing an outbreak to a single home may be difficult with part time staff, agency workers and others having to work across multiple homes.

“It is no surprise that this has also been the case with COVID-19 and this has definitely been compounded by inadequate availability of PPE. As the epidemic in the wider community declines, spread of COVID-19 within care homes, between care homes and from care homes into the community may well become the major threat to the control of the pandemic within the country as a whole risking an early onset of the second peak, so undermining the efforts and sacrifices made by the British public to-date. 

“Our elderly citizens deserve high quality care during their final years and we neglect them at our peril. We have to ensure that every care home has access to rapid and frequent testing of residents and staff when needed. This means that properly trained staff are able to take such swabs even when no one on the staff is able to do the sampling. There must be adequate provision of PPE for both care home staff and for carers working in the community. When outbreaks of infection are detected care homes must be given additional resources to manage that outbreak and ensure that staff do not suffer themselves from the impact of having to self-isolate. If we are not able to do that, any significant relaxation of current distancing rules will certainly be premature and will likely lead to further spread of the infection.”

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/135/science-and-technology-committee-commons/news/146344/committee-to-hear-from-experts-in-virtual-session/

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: 

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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