1./ Everyone is hoping for liberation from lockdown soon. But could it be time to get even tougher? This sobering piece from @derspiegel suggests new COVID variants should be treated as a new crisis and may require even stricter policies. spiegel.de/international/…
2./ No one wants to hear these words, but we can't avoid the discussion. "What we are facing is a new pandemic, epidemiologist @AdamJKucharski says. It could turn out what we've learned so far and the methods that have been used to combat the disease are no longer valid." Gulp.
3./ In countries as varied as Japan, Denmark and Portugal the spread of new COVID variants are showing that even if nations were successful the first time round the new wave of infections has them struggling to contain cases and soaring deaths. france24.com/en/europe/2021…
4./ Our death rate is truly appalling but almost every European country screwed up the holiday season and is now paying the price. Germany enforced a lockdown in November, then opened up. Ireland allowed a "proper" Xmas and now its hospitals are packed 👇france24.com/en/video/20210…
5./ The threat of the new strains is not just that they are more transmissable and therefore achieve exponential growth more quickly. Some seem able to reinfect people, which suggests they could evade the protection of the vaccines. sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/n…
6./ Scientists say they're confident vaccines can be 'tweaked' quickly but this might mean the public who are being vaccinated now would require a whole new round of vaccinations to ensure their complete protection; delaying the lifting of lockdown. 👇telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/2…
7./ If we are entering a new crisis what policies might be required? Perhaps, for one, the UK should follow Bavaria and make proper FFP2 masks compulsory (and do it at a public subsidy). We're kidding ourselves on if we think scarves do the job. dw.com/en/bavaria-man…
8./ Perhaps like Denmark we need to pivot our testing regime (and Track and Trace) to laser focus on the new variants. They've retooled test kits and focus on the UK strain and two others. We could focus on the Brazil/Japan and South African strains. thelocal.dk/20210113/denma…
9./ The main effort in track and trace could go into finding contacts of those testing positive for the variants with quarantine more strictly enforced. The UK now requires a negative test before people can enter the country. Will it really be enforced? gov.uk/guidance/coron…
10./ Everyone who enters is supposed to self-isolate. How will that be enforced? Your guess is as good as mine. There's also an exemption from self-isolation for "high value" business travellers. Is that because they are never superspreaders?👇 washingtonpost.com/world/europe/b…
11./ During the first month of the first lockdown over 1300 private jets flew in or out of the UK despite a ban on non-essential travel. There's little evidence the govt is going to be any tougher this time round in monitoring this movement of the wealthy. standard.co.uk/insider/living…
12./ If we are in a new crisis then perhaps we need to look afresh at new restrictions. In wintry days (less sunlight) some crowded parks feel more like superspreader events than safe places. As for joggers who push their way into your breathing space:🤬 sciencefocus.com/news/coronavir…
13./ Maybe we need a stricter version of lockdown for a month in which the testing regime and track and trace would be upgraded to focus on variants with the sense of priority that vaccination now has. It would be justified to Save our Vaccines, not just Save the NHS.
14./ The argument now is different from that before the first lockdown. Then all decisions had huge economic costs. Now these costs are baked in. We might as well do whatever it takes to stamp out transmission. We also have more to lose. The vaccination strategy might be at risk.
15./ The press is currently obsessed with scoring points against the govt for past errors. But perhaps it should be preparing the public for a potential looming crisis. If we don't act fast the tough days now could turn out merely to be harbingers of tougher days to come.
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