1/11 Hmmm, hello Twitter. A new, public musing, thread folllows. Can you tell me what you think of me joining up these six different dots to ask what I think is an important question at the end of the thread?
2/11 Dot 1. Prime Minister rightly told the nation on 10 May that we are entering a more dangerous phase as we pass the first peak and start to ease lock down. Clear danger of second spike so we need to manage lock down easing carefully....
3/11 ...The spike in covid patients in Weston Super Mare hospital over the last few days shows that the risk of a second spike is very real. Some experts are saying it's a matter of when, where and how much of a second spike, not if.
4/11 Dot 2. Lock down easing seems a very inexact science. My favourite word picture is of a faulty tap. You don't know how much water (i.e. virus spread) will flow when you turn the tap on. A lot more water could flow than you expect....
5/11 ..And if you need to cut the water flow, the tap may not work very well. You could be turning the tap off frantically but find it's slow to react & doesn't cut water flow anything like as fast/much as needed. So start with tiny tap turns, minmising risk as much as possible?
6/11 Dot 3. Exiting lock down safely requires continued adherence to social distancing guidelines. But lots of anecdotal evidence suggests that the events of the last week may have decreased public trust and confidence in the guidelines and, therefore, likelihood of observance...
7/11 ...Difficult to separate out the political noise here from the real evidence. And Government really doesn't want to talk about whether the risk has increased here or not. But, as a minimum, there must be a strong chance of increased risk of reduced observance, surely?
8/11 Dot 4. Lots of good work from early May on NHS Test and Trace. But it's very late in the day. And it's clearly nowhere near complete. The local plans seem very important but they won't be ready until late June. What risks are being run without theose plans being in place?
9/11 Dot 5. Government is now starting to easing lock down with a series of almost daily announcements. There are good economic and social reasons to end lock down as soon as possible. Not least becasue we're all getting pretty fed up.
10/11 Dot 6. I've been very struck by the reporting over the last 16 hours of a 'much more cautious tone' on lock down easing coming from Government Chief Scientific Adviser at yesterday's Downing Sreet press conference.
11/11 So shouldn't be having a better & deeper debate on what the risks here are and whether it is right to be easing lock down in the way proposed...rather than just breathing a huge sigh of relief? And shouldn't our politicians and media be leading this debate more effectively?
