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Coronavirus thread. The government's strategy seems to be this. Smooth the peak, but not too much, so enough people get infected so that the virus dies out before the inevitable NHS winter peak-load. If we act too aggressively now, we could slow it right down, 1/7
but we cannot eliminate it worldwide, so it will inevitably come back again. And because you cannot keep society in lock down for very long, the danger is it will come back when you are less able to deal with cases. 2/7
This strategy has an obvious cost and risk. The cost is that a lot of people will die, because you are not trying to minimise cases. The risk is that you cannot get your control right. Cases could explode too fast and the NHS gets overwhelmed in the same way Italy is. 3/7
Or not enough people are infected and the virus continues into winter anyway. 4/7
The alternative is what other countries are doing, some through necessity because an initial outbreak was uncontrolled (China, South Korea, Italy), but mostly out of choice. They are doing this because it gives people time: to get better testing, 5/7
to give doctors better protection, to get more respirators and so on. And of course to prevent widespread infection long enough until a vaccine becomes available. If this alternative works it is less costly in lives lost. 6/7
The risk with this alternative is that when the virus comes back society becomes more overwhelmed than under the UK strategy, because social control measures are no longer so effective second time around and time didn't buy you enough. /end
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