My suspicion is that the government is thinking about the viruses evolution and the possibility of a 'second wave'. This is not unreasonable as we do know that the #coronavirus is mutating (albeit we don't know if this is functional): 2/n
With #SpanishFlu of 1918 it is been hypothesised that the second wave was worse for young people because of the selective pressures of the trenches: "the severely ill were sent on crowded trains to crowded field hospitals, spreading the deadlier virus" shorturl.at/kmMPQ 3/n 
If all European countries go into lockdown then what selective pressure will that put on #coronavirus? Asymptomatic and mild strains wouldn't spread as fast because people will be hiding at home. Really sick people will go to hospital though and infect doctors and patients. 4/n
Hence the idea that if the UK "takes it on the chin" while other countries are in lockdown, then we get immunity from a mild strain, while the nightmare strain is still evolving in the lockdown countries. 5/n
This theory is dependent on the idea that there is very significant unreported spread of the virus. Supposedly the government is working on the assumption of a mortality rate <1% giorgio.gilest.ro/2020/03/12/the… 6/n
A mortality rate <1% is significantly less than the the #WHO's estimate for CFR of 3.4% (let alone the IFR). It's certainly lower than the figure you get looking at closed cases in Italy worldometers.info/coronavirus/co… 7\n
Now, I know very little about epidemiology or virology, but if the nation's health is being put on the line for this theory: show us the data. Let's get the code for models on github. Perhaps they are well established models amongst those in the field? (@MarcBaguelin?) 8\n
I don't understand why there are not .csv files released daily reporting case-by-case stats on who's been tested / diagnosed (age, location, needs ICU, etc). 9\n
If there is significant under detection of cases, presumably this would show as a depletion of young folk amongst the diagnosed cases (adjusted for average number of edges in social networks by age). Is this there? Nobody can test without the data. We need #openscience. 10\n
Having defended the governments position, I'm off to buy a few multi packs of bog roll, a years supply of food and a membership policy for a converted nuclear bunker 11\n
