Originally Posted by Stewart S
I don’t think it does Rich

It might satisfy public panic and fears for a few weeks but doesn’t support intelligent thinking and science

The British government position is much more intelligent and will in the long

term save hundreds of lives in my opinion

I seriously hope public panic and unintelligent long term thinking fear doesn’t weaken the governments scientists advisors strategy to keep schools open

If I were in Government I’d try to keep schools open for Easter so some children who would normally be looked after by Grandparents could go for days activities

We should be encouraging outdoor events to take place as well



Completely agree Stewart. Since the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, measures such as those the French have introduced will simply slow the inevitable spread of CV-19 throughout the population (which may have merit if the delay coincides peak cases with seasonal healthcare capacity) but inevitable means inevitable.

Building population immunity preferentially amongst the less vulnerable is a much better strategy (in other words, try to isolate the elderly and health-impaired, whilst accepting that the bulk of the population will contract a virus which has become endemic).

The level of the population which needs to be exposed is given by: (Ro-1)/Ro which in the case of CV-19 which appears to have an Ro of around 3 would mean 60% - 70% of the population. Scary, but if we can protect the most vulnerable whilst this immunity is built up across the wider population, this will be more successful than those countries who are probably only going to delay their outbreaks until normality returns.

Apologies if I am explaining something people already know, but amongst my (non-medical) friends no-one seems to understand the principle behind the UK Government strategy or even know how population immunity is achieved (and why alternative strategies to delay the inevitable will likely fail).

Stuart
"There's no skill substitute like cubic inches."