Coronavirus Diaries: March 17
It’s been a few days since the last update, and I’m still keeping busy with React. In other Corona news:
Control, contain, suppress, pass through, lockdown, herd immunity and other communication fails
A few countries are pursuing a “controlled” approach to containment and letting it “pass through” some populations as they work to protect the vulnerable. It’s still unclear if you can truly become ‘immune’ from the virus once you get it, but my country is doing the same.
However, both mine and the UK failed at communicating this. People didn’t take “herd immunity” well, and they were left with the notion that the UK government deliberately wants to infect people:
“People have misinterpreted the phrase herd immunity as meaning that we’re going to have an epidemic to get people infected,” says Graham Medley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Medley chairs a group of scientists who model the spread of infectious diseases and advise the government on pandemic responses. He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections. As a consequence, the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim.
Indeed, yesterday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated, “Herd immunity is not our goal or policy.” The government’s actual coronavirus action plan, available online, doesn’t mention herd immunity at all. “The messaging has been really confusing, and I think that was really unfortunate,” says Petra Klepac, who is also an infectious-disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “It’s been a case of how not to communicate during an outbreak,” says Devi Sridhar, a public-health specialist at the University of Edinburgh.
The U.K’s ‘Herd Immunity’ Debacle
Flatten the curve has a much better ring to it, but it does presuppose understanding the curve. A similar thing played out on Twitter in my country, despite an otherwise mature and measured speech from the PM. The head of the local CDC went through the same motions.
Similarly, the media had wrongly called our restricted freedoms a ‘lockdown’, though we’re nowhere near a lockdown. France and Italy are now in lockdown. The crisis is managed decree by decree. People need permits to travel. Police walk the streets. We have some restrictions: Staying at home for the asymptomatic is encouraged, and mandatory for those with symptoms. No one is enforcing or penalizing. Gatherings over 50 people are banned, so museums, coffee shops, restaurants and schools and universities are closed. The borders are open, yet few are flying in given entire fleets grounded and other countries banning non-essential travel.
Either way, the UK already backtracked from the so-called controlled approach once a new report came out based on Italy and early UK data instead of previous projections modeled on a form of severe pneumonia. This last report says:
“Epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time”.
A suppression strategy, along the lines of the approach adopted by the Chinese authorities, "aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely".
It requires "a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members", and "may need to be supplemented by school and university closures".
But where we are now is that we can’t suppress for 18 months. There is no right answer. But people are starting to realize this won’t last two weeks. Or two months. We’re not like China, taking draconian measures. And even if we did, there’s no way to know when and how it will rebound, and whether we can control it once people start socializing again.
So regardless of what the government does or doesn’t do, here is this warning from Italy:
Please stop waiting for others to tell you what to do; stop blaming the government for doing too much or too little. We all have actions we can take to slow the spread of the disease — and ensuring that your own household has enough canned goods and cleaning supplies is not enough. You can do a lot more. You should do a lot more. Stay away from restaurants, gyms, libraries, movie theaters, bars and cafes, yes. But also: Don’t invite people over for dinner, don’t let your kids go on playdates, don’t take them to the playground, don’t let your teenagers out of your sight. They will sneak out with their friends, they will hold hands, they will share their drinks and food. If this seems too much, consider the following: We are not allowed to hold weddings or funerals. We can’t gather to bury our dead.
Hello From Italy. Your Future is Grimmer Than You Think.
