U.K. Scientists Advised Ministers to Ease Lockdown Gradually
U.K. Scientists Advised Ministers to ‘Gradually’ Ease Lockdown
(Bloomberg) --
The public will lose faith in the U.K.’s coronavirus strategy if ministers ease the lockdown and then impose restrictions again later, according to advice from government experts.
A paper released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies said ministers should try easing the lockdown measures gradually, when the right time comes, because a stop-start approach could lead to a loss of trust.
The suggestion is made in a cache of documents released on Tuesday after Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under pressure to reveal the workings of the secretive SAGE committee, which has shaped his response to the pandemic.
Johnson is preparing to review the lockdown measures that have been in place for the past six weeks, amid calls to ease the restrictions and get the economy moving again. At the same time labor unions are warning that workers must not be told to return before their safety can be guaranteed. SAGE advice will be critical in deciding when and how to lift the lockdown.
Tuesday’s SAGE documents revealed:
- As Johnson boasted March 3 of shaking hands with “everybody” on a hospital visit, a SAGE paper said: “Government should advise against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging”
- On Feb. 4, SAGE estimated the true scale of the outbreak in China to be 10 times higher than officials were confirming at the time
- Modeling presented to a meeting on March 26 -- three days after the lockdown began -- predicted an “optimistic scenario” of 10,000 deaths in the first wave of the outbreak. There are now about 30,000 deaths in the U.K.
- As Johnson ordered the national lockdown on March 23, SAGE experts said it wasn’t clear whether the strict measures would work due to “huge uncertainty” about the pandemic
- A paper presented at a meeting on March 23 predicted London’s hospital intensive care units would be overwhelmed within days, even with the lockdown, and warned that infections were spreading faster than expected
- Debate around “herd immunity” may have undermined instructions to avoid passing virus to other people, SAGE experts warned in a paper presented to the March 23 meeting. “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened,” they said
- On April 14, the panel discussed antibody testing and expressed concerns that “some employers may discriminate on the basis of antibody status.” The committee also fretted that if a test result was required of an employee returning to work, some could try to game the system by buying a fake test result or by seeking to become infected deliberately.
Until Monday, when the government released the names of 50 scientists, the membership of SAGE was largely secret. Two members have declined to allow their identities to be made public.
Tuesday’s bundle of SAGE documents is only the third set to be released, and most of the scientific evidence underpinning the government’s decisions remains secret. A spreadsheet listing all the documents discussed at SAGE meetings included 120 papers, but to date, only 28 have been published, including 16 on Tuesday.
Papers that haven’t been published include one from February on when to stop contact tracing, and another on the impact of sporting events on the transmission of the virus, which was debated on the final day of a four-day horse-racing meeting that drew a quarter of a million spectators. Other unpublished minutes cover school closures, the use of face masks, a comparison of the U.K. response with that of Italy, and one discussed on March 26 entitled “Planning scenarios for the next six months.”
Easing Lockdown
About a third of the April 1 paper on how to relax the lockdown measures was redacted. The published portion shows government scientists examined tactics to ease restrictions and then tighten them again.
“If strict restrictions are retained for months and then abruptly eased and people are told it is safe to resume social contact they will expect this to mean that the risk of infection has ceased or significantly reduced,” they wrote. “If there is then an increase in infection rates that necessitates a reintroduction of restrictions this is likely to be seen as a serious failure of policy and trust in public health advice will be lost.”
Instead, the scientists advocated “trialling easing restrictions very gradually when epidemiologically indicated while clearly explaining why these particular activities are being resumed and how risks must be controlled if these activities are to be maintained.”
Government Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance, who chairs SAGE, told lawmakers on Tuesday it will be for politicians to decide where to “draw the line” on easing the lockdown.
“These are judgments which get based on the scientific information, they’re not scientific certainties that allow you to make an absolute decision,” he told the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee. “Nothing is going to be risk-free. Everything as we go back to less social distancing will carry a risk of there being an outbreak somewhere, or a few more cases.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.