This is the guidance produced by the Crown Prosecution Service, regurgitated by the College of Policing for police officers, summarising what is and isn't considered a "reasonable excuse" for leaving your home. It only applies to England, so I asked an Irish barrister – Ciarán McCollum – to expand it for the other nations in the United Kingdom and his summary is underneath.
The Express leads with the number of healthcare workers who've lost their lives to the virus, a story that's been getting a fair amount of attention over the last few days because it seems to show the price they're paying for the PPE shortage. On BBC Breakfast yesterday it was claimed that 43 NHS workers have died, and the presenter took if for granted that these deaths came about because of their exposure to patients infected with COVID-19. But tragic though any death is, it is worth pausing to consider whether NHS workers really are more likely to die from COVID-19 than other members of the working population. One of the commentators on this site, Guy de la Bédoyère, has crunched the numbers. The NHS employs roughly 1.5 million people across the UK, which is about 1/43 of the UK population. That figure is also about 1/25 of the population of working age (20-65). To date 1,272 people aged 20-59 have died of COVID-19 in the UK, 1/25th of which is 50 – or slightly more than the actual number of NHS workers who have died, at least according to BBC Breakfast. In other words, just as a function of the general risk to which the whole UK population is subject we would expect at least 50 NHS workers to ...
Terrible news in this morning's Sun: pubs won't re-open until Christmas. More bad news elsewhere: according to the Times, Boris is cautious about easing the lockdown, with his "overriding concern" being to avoid a second wave of infections. (The Mail has its version of the story here.) Does this mean Professor Neil Ferguson's proposal for "intermittent social distancing", whereby we relax some of the restrictions in short time windows, then reimpose them when case numbers rebound, has been rejected? That was put forward in Ferguson's March 16th paper as the only viable alternative to leaving the lockdown in place until a vaccine becomes available. Bad news on that front, too. On Saturday all the papers got excited about the fact that a vaccine might be available by September – Sarah Gilbert, Oxford's Professor of Vaccinology, announced she was "80% confident" it would be work – and trials are about to get underway. But yesterday Sir Patrick Vallance poured cold water on that idea, pointing out that no vaccine can be approved until we know it's completely safe. In an article for the Guardian he writes: “A vaccine has to work, but it also has to be safe. If a vaccine is to be given to billions of people, many of whom may be at a low risk from COVID-19, the vaccine ...
This is an early version of a paper that was published in an academic journal in 2003, but it's behind a paywall and one of its authors, Professor David Campbell, has given me permission to publish it here. David is a Professor of Law at Lancaster University Law School and this paper is a detailed critique of the Labour Government's response to the foot and mouth disease epidemic in 2001. Why is that relevant? Because the Government's response in 2001 was informed by statistical modelling done by a team at Imperial College that was led by Professor Neil Ferguson, among others. Imperial's apocalyptic predictions led to more than six million cattle, sheep and pigs being slaughtered, with an estimated cost to the UK economy of £9 billion.
Today's Sunday Times leads with the story that senior ministers have drawn up a three-phase exit plan that would see schools reopened on May 11th. (If you can't get past the Sunday Times's paywall, you can read about the plan in the Mail here.) Under the "traffic light" plan, which has yet to be approved by Boris, schools would reopen on May 11th during the "green" phase, along with clothes shops, garden centres and hairdressers, and rail and bus services would return to normal. This would be followed by a second "amber" stage, starting in late May or early June, which would see more shops and businesses reopen, all employees urged to return to work and some small social gatherings permitted. Pubs and restaurants and larger events such as sport and concerts would be phased in later in the summer. However, the over-70s and those with underlying health conditions will be stuck on a "red" light and have to wait until a vaccine is available before they're allowed to resume normal life. (Note to Boris: a vaccine probably won't be available for several years, so why not just let older people decide for themselves whether to leave their homes and see their grandchildren?) This, or something like it, is the exit strategy the Government should have unveiled on Thursday when ...
Today's FT leads with Andrew Bailey's corroboration of the OBR's forecast that the UK's GDP will decline by 35% in Q2 compared to the start of the year. "I don't think there is anything implausible about a second quarter number of that nature," he said yesterday. But the Governor of the Bank of England was even more pessimistic than the OBR, questioning whether the economy would return to its pre-lockdown output by the end of the year. The BoE is planning to publish its own forecast in early May and is looking at real-time indicators showing big falls in output for many sectors, soaring universal credit claims and higher-than-expected use of the Government's furlough scheme in the private sector. Several of the papers have covered Professor Anthony Costello's claim, when giving evidence to the House of Commons Health Select Committee yesterday, that the COVID-19 death toll could be as high as 40,000 – and that is just in the first wave of infections. In an interview in the Telegraph, he said that if the Government is still pursuing a "herd immunity" strategy (if only!) it won't be able to achieve that without eight to 10 more waves of infections, which will mean tens of thousands more deaths. He based this, in part, on a recent serological study carried out in ...
All the broadsheets lead this morning with yesterday's announcement from Dominic Raab that the lockdown will be extended for at least another three weeks and, in all likelihood, will last for three months from the date it was first imposed (March 23rd), which takes us into June. Raab also set out five "tests" that will have to be met before the lockdown will be lifted: that the NHS is able to provide sufficient critical care to meet demand; "a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rates from coronavirus so we are confident that we have moved beyond the peak"; "reliable data from SAGE showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board"; that the supply of tests and PPE is sufficient to meet demand; and, finally, that any "adjustments to the current measures" won't risk a second peak of infections that overwhelms the NHS. The first thing to be said about these five "tests" is that the first, third, fourth and fifth all relate to the capacity of the NHS and its suppliers and could have been combined into a single "test"; only the second is non-NHS related. Would two "tests" have sounded as if the Government wasn't taking the crisis seriously enough? They're also frustratingly vague. How is "a sustained and consistent ...
This is a paper by Mikko Paunio M.D., M.H.S., an adjunct professor in general epidemiology at the University of Helsinki, Department of Public Health. In the course of his career he has worked at the University of Helsinki, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the European Commission, the World Bank, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. His current position is Medical Counsellor, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland. You can see a list of his publications here. Update: Mikko Paunio has written an addendum to his paper, referring to a number of surveys that have been published since he wrote it that seem to support his hypothesis that many more people have been exposed to the virus than the WHO originally estimated, that at least 50% of people infected are asymptomatic and that large cities like New York are close to herd immunity.
The Times leads this morning with Chris Whitty's comment at yesterday's Government press conference that the trend in new infections is beginning to "flatten out", with the death toll remaining below 800 for the fourth day in a row. Does this mean that when Dominic Raab announces later today that the the lockdown restrictions will remain in place for at least another three weeks – that's the expectation, anyway – he will encourage some workers to return to work straight away? In Spain, people in manufacturing, construction and some services were allowed to return to work on Tuesday. One reason to be pessimistic about the announcement is that if we are flattening the curve that's not necessarily an argument for easing up on extreme social distancing measures. After all, won't new infections start to climb again as soon as they're relaxed? Professor Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College scientist whose modelling has influenced the Government's decision-making, said on the Today programme this morning that we shouldn't ease back on the lockdown until an extensive programme of testing and contact tracing is in place. He called for the creation of a "command and control centre" to oversee this and other aspects of managing the virus – something like the Department for Existing the European Union. In Professor Ferguson's March 16th paper – the ...
The Telegraph, like all the other broadsheets, leads with the OBR's grim forecast – that the economy could shrink by 35% this spring if the lockdown continues for another two months. You can read the OBR's analysis here. We also learnt yesterday that two high street fashion chains are going into administration, Oasis and Warehouse. That follows last week's news that Debenhams, with 22,000 employees, has filed for administration, as has Cath Kidson, putting 950 jobs at risk. The collapse of these employers – not to mention the third of small businesses likely to go bankrupt if the lockdown continues – will have a cost in terms of loss of life. Yesterday, a reader alerted me to an interesting 2009 paper estimating the impact of mass redundancies on mortality by looking at job losses in Pennsylvania in the 1970s and 80s and then tracking those workers via Social Security Administration death records. The authors' concluded that being made redundant at the age of 40 results in a reduction in life expectancy of 1 to 1.5 years. You can read that paper here. Another reader sent me a link to an excellent source of data for lockdown sceptics called 'Facts about COVID-19'. If you click here, you'll be taken to the latest update. Among the new studies it mentions is a pre-print ...
