Nations forced to walk a fine line
The delicate balance between restarting economies and avoiding a second wave of coronavirus is being played out across the world. While the chance of dying from the virus now appears to be low, particularly for younger people, it still has the potential to be indiscriminately lethal, and operates in a way we still do not fully understand.
Yet lockdown is undoubtedly devastating for livelihoods, education, mental and physical health, and cannot continue for much longer without long- term implications that could last a generation.
Treading the line between release and restrictions is proving tricky for many countries. At least 11 have now reimposed some, or all, lockdown restrictions to prevent a deadly second wave after cases began to rise when measures were relaxed.
Japan, China, South Korea, Lebanon, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been forced to bring back localized quarantines or widespread shutdowns.
This week, Dr. Hans Kluge, Europe’s director of the World Health Organization, warned European countries to brace for a deadly second wave, adding that now is the “time for preparation, not celebration.”
Nearly six and half million people worldwide have been infected, and recent figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that it is probably way higher, because so many people are asymptomatic.
Britain initially planned to keep cases at a low level or “squash the sombrero” as Boris Johnson termed it, to avoid a second peak. But after modelling suggested 500,000 people could die as a result, the strategy changed to suppression.
Although it has kept cases at a low level it makes the country far more vulnerable to a second wave as so few people have herd immunity.
Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, who sits on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, has warned that a second wave is a “clear and present danger” in Britain.
“The lockdown was never intended to be permanent it’s clearly not possible. So ideally we would like to get R down by using a vaccine, and we call that herd immunity.
“We don’t have a vaccine and we’re quite far from natural herd immunity and it doesn’t look like we can eliminate it. So the conclusion from that is that the second wave really is a clear and present danger.
“Containment is what the U. K. was trying to do right at the beginning of this epidemic. Intensive surveillance, large- scale screening, effective contact tracing, isolation of cases, quarantining of those exposed, quarantine screening of international arrivals and some residual social distancing. That is a possible new normal and if we don’t like we’re going to have to find other ways of living with COVID-19 because it’s not going away any time soon.”