UK’s second wave ‘twice as severe’

COVID-19: STUDY CALLS FOR SWEEPING TRACK, TRACE

Shows schools should not reopen.

Britain faces a second wave of Covid-19 this European winter, twice as widespread as the initial outbreak, if it reopens schools without a more effective test and trace system in place, according to a study published yesterday.

Researchers from University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modelled the impact of reopening schools either on a fullor part-time basis, thus allowing parents to return to work, on the potential spread of the virus.

They concluded a second wave could be prevented if 75% of those with symptoms were found and tested and 68% of their contacts were traced, or if 87% of people with symptoms were found and 40% of their contacts tested.

“However, we also predict that in the absence of sufficiently broad test,trace, isolate coverage, reopening of schools, combined with accompanied reopening of society across all scenarios, might induce a second Covid-19 wave,” said the study, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

“Our modelling results suggest that full school reopening in September 2020 without an effective test,trace, isolate strategy would result in R rising above 1 and a resulting second wave of infections that would peak in December and be two to 2.3 times the size of the original Covid-19 wave.”

Lead author of the study, Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths, said the test and trace system in England was currently reaching only about 50% of contacts of all those testing positive for Covid-19.

The lecturer in mathematical modelling at University College London, told BBC radio the worst scenarios could still be avoided.

“Importantly, what we find is that it is possible to avoid a second epidemic wave if enough people with symptomatic infections can be diagnosed. Their contacts can then be traced and effectively isolated,” she said.

Schools in Britain closed in March during the national lockdown, except for the children of key workers, and reopened for a small number of pupils in June.

However, the government says all pupils will return to school across the UK by early next month, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying it is a national priority. –

Picture: Reuters People carry a fake coffin as symbol of a student, dead from Covid-19 – the disease caused by the coronavirus – as they march during the National Day of Resistance to schools reopening in New York City.