Controlled spread...then we can go on and beat it
ALLOWING a controlled spread of Covid-19 and ending the lockdown in January would see off the virus for good and bring swift economic recovery, a risk expert believes.
There would be more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths but that could be lowered with shielding and testing, said Professor Philip Thomas.
He warned the current bid to keep the infection rate – R0 number – below one cost far more lives and needed a near-permanent lockdown ending only if a vaccine was produced.
Basing calculations on the newest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, Prof Thomas said a semi-permanent lockdown would shrink the economy by nearly a third.
The Bristol University risk analyst says an average 1.9 million lives would be lost by 2025 – the vast majority due to collateral damage of the lockdown.
Prof Thomas’s study, due to be published in the journal Nanotechnology Perceptions, suggests it would be better to his run “hot” and keep the infection rate above one.
He said: “There are no good choices. But we need to be honest with ourselves and recognise that we have no ‘magic bullet’, no clean solution for dealing with this deeply unpleasant disease.
“We need to choose the least worst option.”
His scenarios use economic proj-ections from the Office for Budget Responsibility and ONS infection data.
He says in the absence of a vaccine and assuming Covid-19 does not change its pattern of behaviour, there are four options, all focusing on how many people will be infected by each virus carrier.
The first keeps the R0 below one and the second moves out of lockdown as quickly as possible without overwhelming the NHS. Option three is withdrawal from lockdown over this year and the fourth is lifting all restrictions immediately. Prof
Thomas’s model says that under option one the number of Covid19 cases declines. But by 2025 just five per cent of the population will have contracted the virus, so little immunity will be achieved.
National output drops by nearly a third to 71 per cent and will not recover, which reduces life expectancy.
Prof Thomas predicts a loss of 1.9 million average UK lives by 2025, almost all down to the dire economic situation.
Option two is a slow move out of lockdown with R0 allowed to rise to 1.18 by June and held for a year before increasing to 1.6.
It is held there for another year before all restrictions are lifted and rises to 1.94, its unrestrained level.
This sees two further virus peaks, each twice the size of April’s spike, but Nightingale field hospitals would allow the
‘Herd immunity is achieved’
NHS to cope and the epidemic would be over by 2024.
Gross domestic product (GDP) will fall by 20.2 per cent in 2020 and the economy will not recover until 2023.
Prof Thomas says 644,000 average UK lives would be lost, around 10 per cent down to coronavirus and the remainder caused by deep recession.
In the third option lockdown is lifted more fully and R0 allowed to rise to 1.45 by June. All restrictions will be lifted in January 2021.
It causes one large peak in September, 10 times the size of the April spike. It probably overwhelms the NHS but herd immunity is achieved by the end of 2020. Although GDP falls by 16.1 per cent in 2020 it will recover more quickly and be back to normal by 2022.
The estimated death toll is 118,000 average UK lives – due entirely to Covid-19 as the recession will be short-lived.
The final option removes all restrictions in June, allowing R0 to return to 1.94.This results in a single spike of infections, 30 times the size ofapril’s.the NHS would not be able to cope.
Herd immunity is achieved by the end of 2020, GDP falls by 6.6 per cent but recovers in 2021. An average 170,000 lives are lost, all down to Covid-19.