A few thoughts on current COVID situation in Europe… 1/
Any proposal to reduce COVID transmission that doesn’t now have vaccines and rapid tests front-and-centre is not a proposal that’s had much thought go into it. Booster data looks very good - roll-out of these is likely to play a large part in how well countries do over winter. 2/
I think any country reintroducing lockdown-type measures needs to outline very clear criteria for lifting them. What’s the exit strategy? When will these disruptive last-ditch measures finally be off the table? 3/
The various claims a few weeks ago suggesting country X in Europe had solved COVID and UK should copy them undermined the message that additional measures can be useful to reduce pressures over winter.... 4/
In particular, it gave ammo to nonsense reasoning like 'well country X has vaccination and testing and now has a large epidemic so these measures clearly have zero effect'. There are useful, efficient ways to reduce impact (see above) – need to communicate these clearly. 5/
The countries in the best position against COVID this winter aren’t necessary the ones that have had best outcomes against COVID to date. This is because epidemics become non-linear as immunity accumulates (i.e. more past infections can mean fewer future ones). 6/
This doesn’t mean past infections are good. It just means that if they’ve happened they will affect future dynamics. And linear thinking about what happens next for COVID (especially if rehashing pre-vaccine era talking points) will lead to increasingly inaccurate conclusions. 7/
Anyway, that’s it for now - dropping back offline for a while. 8/8
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