LONDON (REUTERS) - It was early spring when British scientists laid out the bald truth to their government. It was 'highly likely', they said, that there was now 'sustained transmission' of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
LONDON - It was early spring when British scientists laid out the bald truth to their government. It was"highly likely", they said, that there was now"sustained transmission" of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.
Alongside him at the Downing Street press conference was Chris Whitty, the government's chief medical adviser and himself an epidemiologist. Interviews with more than 20 British scientists, key officials and senior sources in Mr Johnson's Conservative Party, and a study of minutes of advisory committee meetings and public testimony and documents, show how these scientific advisers concluded early the virus could be devastating.
From the outset, said Prof Edmunds, work by scientists had shown that, with only limited interventions, the virus would trigger an"overwhelming epidemic" in which Britain's health service was not going"to get anywhere near being able to cope with it. That was clear from the beginning". It is too soon to judge the ultimate soundness of the UK's early response. If history concludes that it was lacking, then the criticism levelled at the prime minister may be that, rather than ignoring the advice of his scientific advisers, he failed to question their assumptions.
British PM 'stable' after intensive care stay Now, as countries debate how to combat the virus, some experts here say, the lesson from the British experience may be that governments and scientists worldwide must increase the transparency of their planning so that their thinking and assumptions are open to challenge.
In a statement to Reuters, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said the government was delivering"a science-led action plan" to contain the outbreak."As the public would expect, we regularly test our pandemic plans and what we learned from previous exercises has helped us to rapidly respond to Covid-19."
Edmunds remembers that early in the outbreak, the data from China were sketchy, in the period"where the Chinese were trying to pretend that this wasn't transmissible between humans." Another Chinese study, in the same magazine, warned starkly of a global spread and urged:"Preparedness plans and mitigation interventions should be readied for quick deployment globally."
But the scientists did not articulate their fears forcefully to the government, minutes of committee meetings reveal. In a statement, a spokesperson said:"Increasing the risk level in the UK is a belt and braces measure which allows the government to plan for all future eventualities." "We had milder interventions in place," said Edmunds, because no one thought it would be acceptable politically"to shut the country down."
According to one senior Conservative Party politician, who was officially briefed as the crisis unfolded, the close involvement in the response to the coronavirus of the same scientific advisers and civil servants who drew up the flu plan may have created a"cognitive bias." Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious diseases epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, and a member of the SPI-M committee, said Covid-19 did behave differently than an expected pandemic flu - for example school closures proved to be far less effective in slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
With Brexit done, Mr Johnson had the chance to focus on other matters the following month, among them the emerging virus threat. But leaving the European Union had a consequence. In the medical and scientific world, there was growing concern about the threat of the virus to the UK. A report from Exeter University, published on Feb 12, warned a UK outbreak could peak within four months and, without mitigation, infect 45 million people.
After developing a test for the new virus by Jan 10, health officials adopted a centralised approach to its deployment, initially assigning a single public laboratory in north London to perform the tests. By April 5, Britain had carried out 195,524 tests, in contrast to at least 918,000 completed a week earlier in Germany.
But there had been no contact from the British government."I find it somewhat surprising, I have spoken to a lot of other governments," he said. Longley, an infectious diseases consultant at London's Hospital for Tropical Diseases, was part of a team that staffed a public health service helpline for those with symptoms. The plan, she said, had been to make all effort to catch every case and their contacts. And"to start with, it looked like it was working."
But as the cases in London built up, and the volume of calls to the helpline mushroomed, the priority began to shift to clinical care of the serious cases."At a certain point you have to make a decision about where you put your efforts as a workforce." Edmunds, who had technical difficulties and couldn't be heard on the call, emailed afterwards to ask the warning to be elevated to"high," the minutes revealed. But the warning level remained lower. It's unclear why.
The following day, pandemic modelling committee SPI-M produced its"consensus report" that warned the coronavirus was now transmitting freely in the UK. Tougher measures could create a"large second epidemic wave once the measures were lifted," SAGE said. Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, who chaired SAGE, said in a BBC interview on March 13 that the plan was to simply control the pace of infection. The government had, for now, rejected what he called"eye-catching measures" like stopping mass gatherings such as football games or closing schools.
Even the government's"mitigation" approach could lead to 250,000 deaths and intensive care units being overwhelmed at least eight times over.
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