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Why lockdown isn’t working fast enough and what we should do next: a thread..... Not just borders and monitoring new strains, but time to fix the biggest flaw in our current strategy, namely that three quarters of those with symptoms do not self-isolate.
6.3 million have had their first jab, infections are down 22% (7 day avg) & hospital patients 4% below Jan 18 peak. So why should we be cautious? https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/25-jan-update-regions-see-mixed-fortunes-as-covid-hospital-patients-go-into-week-on-week-decline/7029235.article?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=newsfeed
The answer is uncertainty over new strains: whilst vaccine seems to work as well against UK/Kent strain, this may not be the case with the S African strain (already here) and the Brazilian strains (one of which is already here but not yet the Manaus one): https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-variants-idUSKBN29T07E
Whilst the new strains are unlikely to render the vaccine ineffective, they may reduce its efficiency at keeping people out of hospitals. Because viruses are good at mutating, sooner or later there may well be a strain that is fully immune to the vaccine (not necessarily soon).
Efficiently isolating people who are infectious will therefore remain a key part of our strategy for some time. Yet Cabinet Office surveys show an extraordinary THREE QUARTERS of those with symptoms do not fully self-isolate. 15% of them even go to work. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/500-to-self-isolate-under-plan-to-slow-covid-7bv7n5vbj
Or in absolute numbers, if Cab Office survey is accurate & translated onto the latest T&T data, last week around 427,000 people who were asked to self isolate did not & 85,000 of them went to work. That’s a LOT of people spreading a dangerous infection. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports
Closing borders & quarantine hotels is a sensible step…but we won’t address heart of the problem unless we deal with domestic transmission. We need to raise compliance with isolation to 95%+ rates achieved in Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. That means a range of measures including:
1. Guaranteeing salary backfill for those who lose wages as a result of self-isolating. Expensive…but loss of earnings seems to be the biggest cause of non-compliance and the overall cost is much cheaper than another lockdown.
Daily contact with those asked to self-isolate - using GPS tracking to monitor compliance if necessary as happens in Taiwan and Poland. People need to know how much this matters and if we cannot persuade them to comply at the outset we should keep trying.
3. Equipping and funding local councils to monitor compliance - as this cannot possibly be done from national call-centres.
