March 9, 2020

expert reaction to Number 10 spokesperson saying that the UK is currently remaining in the containment stage of its response to COVID-19

A spokesperson for Number 10 has announced hat the UK is currently remaining in the ‘containment’ stage of its response to COVID-19, rather than progressing to the ‘delay’ phase of response. 

Tuesday 10^th March

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:

“The move from ‘contain’ to ‘delay’ will involve far greater obvious disruption to daily life than we have seen thus far. As the Chief Medical Officer has said, there can be ‘disruption fatigue’ from the general population if the interventions continue for too long, and this could then hamper the efforts to handle the outbreak. Thinking pragmatically, between those of us within the ‘expert community’ there is now increased discussion about the precise day or moment for the transition from ‘contain’ to ‘delay’, and this illustrates nicely just how difficult it is for the decision-makers. My personal view is the UK have the correct response plans in place, including the pre-warning about likely future interventions over the coming days.”

Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology, University of Reading, said:

“It’s right that the UK is currently in phase one of a plan to contain the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. As the virus is a respiratory illness, the advice from the Government about ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ and regular hand washing will help to delay it spreading more quickly.

“More serious containment action, such as that seen in China and Italy, should not be used unless absolutely necessary and while we may see a move towards stricter controls on people’s movements in the coming weeks or months, it’s important for these to be objective and evidence-based.  We must avoid “Something must be done, this is something, so let’s do it” scenarios.”

Prof Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, said:

“Moving from the ‘containment’ to the ‘delay’ phase of the COVID-19 response in the UK would have several implications. Primarily, it would imply that there as extensive spread within the community and so it was no longer thought possible the epidemic could be contained. In that situation measures such as contact tracing, mass quarantine and advice against travel to affected countries would be of little use and might be abandoned. COBRA has decided against taking such a step just yet.

“When we do move to the ‘delay’ phase the UK government will have to consider introducing a raft of measures – perhaps similar to those now in place in northern Italy – in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, before taking that step we should first ask the question: what is our exit strategy? We would not want to be in lock down indefinitely. But what would we look for in the epidemiological data that would indicate it is safe to lift the restrictions? And if the epidemic does not behave as hoped, what then?”

Dr Thomas House, Reader in Mathematical Statistics, University of Manchester, said:

“People staying at home does work to reduce disease spread, however transmission happens when susceptible and infectious individuals meet. This means that measures like we have seen in Italy and China are best deployed when there are more cases, since they carry significant costs. Perhaps the most important thing that we could do as a society is to reduce ‘presenteeism’, where people feel the need to go into work when they are ill, through ensuring that the basic rights to security of employment and paid sick leave are respected.”

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

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/

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