In the last weeks I talked often with friends & colleagues about #Covid19 and realised I wasn’t getting through to them. I finally found a formula that made them listen. I told them: “The world we live in will look very different in a few weeks.” We live in that world now. thread
#Covid19 case numbers in Europe and US are rising rapidly. The rest of the world is likely on the same trajectory. “I don't believe any country is going to escape this pandemic”, @JeremyFarrar told me. “Every country now should be thinking ‘We're somewhere on the epidemic curve’"
@JeremyFarrar So what are countries doing to combat #COVID19? Guiding document is still the report of the @WHO joint mission to China which explained the measures taken there that helped get the epidemic under control: That included #physicaldistancing incl. the lockdown of millions of people.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO When the report came out many people said, many of those measures would never fly in democracies in the West. In fact, physical distancing has been done now by many countries, even the extreme measure of police-enforced lockdowns: Look at Italy, France, Spain.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO Here in Berlin my gym is closed, so is my favourite restaurant. Theatres, operas, schools, shops. Things we took for granted a few weeks ago are no longer possible. Borders are shut, entire airline fleets grounded. On Monday I queued for the first time to get into my supermarket.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO Not all measures are equally important: Big outdoor sports events probably pose comparatively little risk. “Your home or at your workplace, that's where most people pick up respiratory infections”, John Edmunds of @LSHTM told me.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM School closings are complicated. Because the benefit is not completely clear. And the downsides are apparent: Keeping health care workers home to look after children or even exposing high risk grandparents to #sarscov2.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM Trick - for many measures - may be to be flexible: Singapore did not close its schools, instead halving class sizes, instituting strict hygiene measures and staggering break periods so students are not together then.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM Either way, physical distancing is here. That’s good. As @drtedros said today: “Physical distancing measures – like cancelling sporting events, concerts and other large gatherings – can help to slow transmission of the virus.”
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros But as @DrTedros keeps repeating, it's just one part of @WhO strategy. In today’s presser, he said: “to suppress and control epidemics, countries must isolate, test, treat and trace.” Surprisingly, that part has been implemented to a lesser degree in countries fighting #covid19.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros “At this point 100% of nations that got it under control, did so based on testing and tracing, isolation, quarantining”, says @marcelsalathe. He said it takes determination to find every single infection and break every chain of transmission.“I'm still not seeing that in Europe.”
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros @marcelsalathe So that’s probably what needs to improve in next weeks to completely suppress this epidemic. And if that really works, we will confront a new, complicated question: How does this end? How do we get back to normal life in times of #covid19?
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros @marcelsalathe For now we may end up with a model of severe restrictions interrupted by a kind of collective drug holiday. As @GaviSeth says at the end of our story on all this: "You cannot say the Earth has to stop for a year or 2 years.”
sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/m…
sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/m…
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM Either way, physical distancing is here. That’s good. As @DrTedros said today: “Physical distancing measures – like cancelling sporting events, concerts and other large gatherings – can help to slow transmission of the virus.”
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros But as @DrTedros keeps repeating, it's just one part of @WHO strategy. In today’s presser, he said: “to suppress and control epidemics, countries must isolate, test, treat and trace.” Surprisingly, that part has been implemented to a lesser degree in countries fighting #covid19.
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros “At this point 100% of nations that got it under control, did so based on testing and tracing, isolation, quarantining”, says @marcelsalathe. He said it takes determination to find every single infection and break every chain of transmission.“I'm still not seeing that in Europe.”
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros @marcelsalathe So that’s probably what needs to improve in next weeks to completely suppress this epidemic. And if that really works, we will confront a new, complicated question: How does this end? How do we get back to normal life in times of #covid19?
@JeremyFarrar @WHO @LSHTM @DrTedros @marcelsalathe For now we may end up with a model of severe restrictions interrupted by a kind of collective drug holiday. As @GaviSeth says at the end of our story on all this: "You cannot say the Earth has to stop for a year or 2 years.” sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/m…
