Thread by @IndependentSage

Presentation from Professor Christina Pagel

Test and Trace figures for Wales and Scotland

Just 9% of test results in England were received promptly in first week of September

New UK confirmed COVID-19 cases

Where are the cases?

Increases in younger age groups are spreading to higher age groups

Hospital admission figures from Birmingham: "an exponential curve"

Hospital admissions are doubling every 8 days

We are on a knife edge, but an improvement in test and trace in the next fortnight could turn things around

Fatality figures are only part of the story

How does the UK compare to other countries?

You can bend the COVID curve without lockdown

Professor Christina Pagel: A combination of steep increases in cases, increasing hospital admissions and a broken testing system has left us in a dangerous place.

If the 8-day doubling rate for new cases continues, our daily hospital admissions will be at mid-March levels by next weekend and where we were at lockdown by early October.

Modelling shows we have 2 weeks to act. Experience shows that countries who acted early did best.

The government needs to throw everything at effective improvement of locally-run test and trace

Professor Stephen Reicher will now present Independent SAGE's 10-point emergency plan

Our testing system is broken. If we do nothing the pandemic will run out of control

The problem with the rule of 6 is that it allows 6 households to get together. We propose limiting indoor social interaction to a bubble of three households

We need to put more funding into schools and many pupils are missing out on education because they don't have resources at home

We don't need a world-class testing system. We need one that works, that beats the virus

We need to provide wrap-around support for those people who need to self-isolate. Less than 20% of people that are asked to actually isolate.

Set up a fund and fund people to self isolate because if you don't do that you're wasting your time with a test and trace system

Shadow secretary of state for health and social care Jonathan Ashworth asks how much time have we got to turn things around and what did South Asia do to bend the curve down?

Professor Karl Friston: we are falling off the edge of the knife now. We need to act within the next week

Jonathan Ashworth: These are really important recommendations and I strongly agree with the points about contact tracing and support for people who need to self-isolate.

Jonathan Ashworth: I'm here in Leicester where we have a huge number in precarious work and high levels of child poverty and the idea that people can isolate for 2 weeks without financial support is for the birds.

Jonathan Ashworth: We need to put public health in control, put NHS labs in control and don't waste money outsourcing to these huge private companies who are making a mess of it

Dr Dominic Pimenta, NHS doctor and author of Care of Duty, asks what should we advocating for now for individuals who need to shield?

Dr Zubaida Haque: we all need to be making sacrifices to avoid another lockdown, it shouldn't just be the vulnerable or those who are shielding

Allyson Pollock: We'll never have enough tests so we need to bring GPs and their primary care teams back into the system, especially as we're coming into the season of colds and flu, so they can make a clinical diagnosis and use tests in a more rational way

Professor Susan Michie: The only way schools can be truly safe is to get community transmission rates down. We need to be able to have social distancing at school. This means more space and more teachers.

Professor Stephen Reicher: a huge priority must be laptops and Wifi for every student if we're not going to create a massive problem of social inequality in the future

Dr Zubaida Haque: There's no clear govt strategy to deal with this pandemic let alone the next few weeks.