Thread by @Ananyo

I hate lockdowns and I hate schools being closed. Which is why I don't want a fourth lockdown later this year. How do we avoid that? 1/

First let's counter this idea that scientists are pessimistic. This isn't true. In my experience, generally, they're rather an optimistic bunch. My rule of thumb is that if you listen to many scientists, they're actually giving you an upbeat interpretation of the facts. 2/

Luckily, I left the lab 20 years ago and I'm a born glass half-empty kind of person. So let's look at where we are without rose-tinted glasses-and where we might be at the end of the year. Then you can decide what the government should do now. 3/

My first conclusion is that vaccination is not going to get us out of this mess entirely. They will help a lot but perhaps not enough to prevent surges and hospitalisations--and the resulting lockdowns. Why? 4/

Let's do some sums. Assume we get every adult willing to have the jab, one dose by September. Let's say 90% of adults agree to have the jab. They get 70-80% protection. That still leaves <18 year olds unvaccinated. So we have approx 50-60% of the whole population protected 5/

That's enough to take pressure off the hospitals hopefully. But there's a problem. We have new variants popping up all the time. Looking at what we know about the Brazilian and South African variants, and taking a pessimist's view--let's say they knock down vax efficacy by 20% 6/

Well now that's not looking so good at all. So we really can't let these strains spread here. Let me repeat: we cannot let these strains spread here. That means we cannot start easing restrictions in mid-February no matter what Johnson's backbenchers are telling him 7/

Because you see with these variants, if they are knocking down efficacy by even 10-20%, we're down to less than half the population being protected. And that's enough for Covid to spread-more slowly for sure-but still at R>1 with no restrictions 8/

If you're with me so far, keep following me down the pessimist's path and see where we get to. We know that there are going to be parts of the world that tragically get vaccinated late--maybe in 1-2 years. We know that there are a huge number of cases+little monitoring 9/

We know that the UK variant is probably more deadly, and spreads faster. We know that some strains may partly evade vaccines. So the pessimist would assume we'll get a strain appearing that has some combination of these attributes 10/

And perhaps one that is more vaccine resistant too. How quickly could one emerge? Well, that depends on the size of the unvaccinated population in the world and how long some countries continue not suppressing this virus really really hard 11/

I find it strange that many who argued for 'taking back control of our borders' are arguing with equal passion for allowing our borders to be completely porous to new Covid strains🤷12/

Boris Johnson's talking about 'debate' but really, if we want to avoid the potential for a surge in infections later this year as we race to get second doses out to the population+don't want new, nastier strains circulating, there's no 'debate' necessary 13/

We need to:
1) Supress infections really, really hard until we're close to 0
2) Get every facet of TTI working - that includes the 'isolate' bit. If there's evidence that £500 will get people to isolate (and I think there is)-do it.
14/

3/ EVERYONE coming in has to be tested and has to isolate.
4/ We can't talk about 'saving summer'. This is short-sighted nonsense, just as talk of 'saving Christmas' was. No foreign holidays this year. Anyone that insists on going abroad should isolate in a hotel on return. 15/

5/ We absolutely cannot let up on restrictions until we have infections at a level we are *sure* is managable by TTI. 16/

17/ If we want children to go back to school after Easter, and I do, we need to be planning for that now. That means - no holds barred mitigation to avoid spread within classrooms. Ensure good ventilation (including staff rooms), masks in classrooms for older kids... 17/

18/ ...think about using outdoor spaces (marquees, heaters?), more funding for more staff TAs etc, key year groups back first (early years/exam years?)

Let's not just reopen to all and hope for the best with no precautions in place. 19/

If we want to take our country back from covid, then we have to stop playing catch-up with the virus. There is no honest option left now, even with the vaccine, other than this if we want to return to something like normality. 20/

I'm sorry that anyone else is saying anything different. If they are, look at what they said about the virus 6-8 months ago publicly and see if it holds up to scrutiny. If it doesn't ask yourself seriously whether you should trust them again now ENDS