Thread by @IndependentSage

We are live. On the agenda today: the route out of lockdown. With @aliceroberts and latest data from @chrischirp. Plus special guests @doctor_oxford and @JonAshworth pscp.tv/w/cv5j1jFNV0V3…

.@chrischirp is just talking us through the latest figures. Cases are continuing to come down (although the rate of decline is slowing) and we're now back at the levels we were at at the end of the last lockdown in Nov.

For the first time since September, cases in primary school children are higher than in secondary school children. This may reflect that currently around 25% of primary school students in school compared to 5% of secondary

'We need a strategy to drive infections down and keep them low so that we can avoid the blunt instrument of lockdown.' @ReicherStephen introduces Independent SAGE's Sustainable Suppression Strategy

Lockdown is a sign of failure to have a systematic strategy in place to keep driving infections down @ReicherStephen

Vaccines are part of the solution but they are not the whole solution

Five pillars on which Independent SAGE strategy is based

'Data not dates' should drive decisions about when to reopen, with schools opening first when incidence is below 100 confirmed cases per 100k per week in all regions

'It's impossible to exaggerate quite how gruelling conditions have been inside hospitals. This has caused sheer physical exhaustion and an emotional toll on staff' @doctor_oxford describes working on frontline in NHS during the pandemic

'When you are at the frontline seeing patients coming in day after day with the same symptoms and dying in unimaginable numbers it's incredibly traumatic' @doctor_oxford on the reality of working in the NHS right now

A recent report showed that 1 in 7 ICU staff has contemplated self-harm or suicide @doctor_oxford

If we want to care for society's most vulnerable members, that's the reason to keep transmission rates as low as possible. We have a moral imperative. @doctor_oxford

'We are seeing a big Covid divide opening up. Rates are falling more slowly in deprived areas. How do we ensure that poorer communities, with overcrowded housing, where people must go out to work, like Leicester, are not left behind?' @JonAshworth

'We don't do enough to protect people by reducing their vulnerability. We have to be meaningful and purposeful about addressing inequalities in housing, public space, access to healthy food as part of building resilience to Covid and to other conditions' @DrTolullah