The horrific death forecast behind latest lockdown
SHUTDOWN WILL SAVE 1,400 LIVES, REPORT ESTIMATES
THE pre-Christmas lockdown in Wales should prevent many hundreds of Covid-19 deaths over the next two months, modelling suggests.
Tier 4 restrictions, imposed before the festive break, will also cut thousands of hospital admissions compared with a “do nothing” approach, according to the Welsh Government’s Technical Advisory Cell (TAC).
TAC’s projections help explain why the Welsh Government chose to act as it did and bring forward its planned post-Christmas curbs.
The findings were published on December 18 – just a day before the Tier 4 lockdown was imposed. It was originally planned for yesterday.
Had the lockdown been put in place from December 4, TAC estimates the move would have prevented 1,400 deaths and 5,000 hospital admissions between then and February 28 (compared to a do-nothing approach).
In the report TAC experts recommended “immediate actions, equivalent to alert level 4”, were needed to suppress the epidemic.
The earlier these were imposed, the shorter the subsequent lockdown, they added.
But they also warned that Tier 4 restrictions must be regularly reviewed, perhaps weekly, because they “may cause considerable socioeconomic harm” if they remain in place for a long time.
The report authors said: “Immediate level 4 type restrictions in the pre- and post-Christmas period would likely lower the epidemic’s growth and associated health impacts.
“Alongside more risk communication about ‘not mixing’, additional measures that could be considered include greater working from home, avoidance of mixing in Christmas sales, stay local advice.”
The impact of switching to a oneday Christmas bubble was not specifically modelled by the TAC experts.
However other modelling groups concluded – with a high level of confidence – that a shorter Christmas bubble, with less household mixing, would reduce virus transmission rates.
As a result the TAC team assumed a shorter period of Christmas mixing. This, in itself, would cut the number of deaths in Wales, even if no other restrictions were applied.
Nevertheless, it was assumed that Christmas will increase transmission rates by 10%.
TAC’s projections, based on models by Swansea University, suggested a worst case scenario of 2,516 deaths and 8,569 hospital admissions between December 4 and February 28.
This was based on no interventions with the whole of Wales staying at Tier 1.
Best case scenario was imposing Tier 4 curbs from December 4 up to Christmas, and then reimposing them after Christmas for four weeks.
The restrictions would then be eased to Tier 3 for February.
In its report, TAC noted that a longer post-Christmas lockdown appeared to produce minimal benefits.
This, concluded the authors, is probably because there is not enough Welsh data for Tier 3 curbs and so inferences are difficult to make.
TAC accepted it had to make a large number of assumptions in its projections, and that conditions could rapidly change, skewing the outcomes.
The reported concluded: “Given the significant changes in population mixing and behaviours (eg. return of university students) alongside new and existing restrictions (eg. blended learning, hospitality and Christmas event closures) there is a high degree of uncertainty in the outcomes of the models.
“The observed data trends may be quite different from those that have been modelled.
“In particular, the public response to restrictions is difficult to predict.
“Additionally, the recent identification of a variant SARS-CoV-2 may change the transmission dynamics.
“However, to date the models have provided a very clear and reliable indication of the epidemic’s behaviour in Wales.”