Thread by @martinmckee

Much talk on @BBCWorldatOne about "acceptable level of COVID deaths". Can someone explain how you maintain a level of anything when it changes exponentially and you are always dealing with data (on becoming infected) ~10 days out of date? Do we need Mk 1 crystal ball?

And please don't use comparison with tolerance of deaths on roads. They don't change exponentially. With COVID, if rates are not going down they are going up. And if they keep going up (R>1) they soon get very high

And even with road deaths, as Sweden shows, setting a zero goal pays dividends
roadsafetysweden.com/about-the-conf….

And for those who argue that exponential growth will stop when everyone is immune, recall that the more the virus replicates the more likely it is to mutate, so we go back to square one

And yes, coming from Belfast, I do have a problem with the "acceptable level of ..." argument
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptabl…

And as some people are working hard to misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting permanent lockdowns. That’s not happening in NZ. And if U.K. got its act together & stopped exporting virus they wouldn’t have even the problems we do. I’m arguing against permanent uncertainty

And I also understand that most mutations won’t escape vaccines but I’d rather not encourage those that will by having high circulating (& this replicating) levels in situation where we give selective advantage to those that can