FT science writer Anjana Ahuja explains the science behind governments’ strategies to ease lockdown restrictions while allowing economies to reopen. See if you get the FT for free as a student ( or start a £1 trial:
The world might be gearing to come out of lockdown but the threat of coronavirus hasn’t gone away anyone who hasn’t yet had the disease is just as susceptible to catching it now as they were before and no country in the world has yet achieved herd immunity where so many of the population have been infected that the risk of infection to others becomes very low and
While life-saving drugs may have hit the news recently with one called rem desert ear being given emergency authorization in the u.s. no drug has yet been shown to improve the survival chances of covert patients only a vaccine can allow us to get back to normality and realistically that’s going to take at least until 2021 until then stopping the transmission of
Corona virus is the only defense we have some countries have seen the reproduction number the fabled are number fall below 1 this is critical for disease control if r is 2 then 10 infected people will on average pass the disease on to 20 more and the epidemic grows exponentially if the r is not point-five those 10 infected people will only infect another 5 and
The epidemic gradually declines the problem is the lockdowns that are keeping our below 1 are not seen as sustainable both for economic and long-term health and social reasons so how can government’s free up economies while keeping covert 19 under control in the absence of any certainty different countries are taking different approaches but most are favoring the
Basic principle of testing tracking and tracing that allows public health officials to know where the virus is and how it’s spreading so it can be contained south korea has used this technique since the start of the pandemic it relies on the population using a smartphone app that can track any individuals location if that’s individual then comes into close contact
With someone who later tests positive the app will alert them and they can in turn get tested and self isolate apps designed to track and trace are not without their problems though in order to work effectively they need the majority of the population to download and use them and many have data privacy concerns it’s also unclear whether those who’ve been close to
Someone with the virus should be forced to isolate those living and working in busy areas like cities could end up bouncing from one period of isolation to another another idea is to give people immunity certificates or immunity passports which would exempt workers from lockdowns because they’ve already had the virus but until we really understand the link between
Antibodies and immunity the world health organization has warned against countries adopting this approach sending people who have already had the virus back into circulation could pose an infection risk when it comes to relaxing restrictions some countries are trying a more nuanced approach which doesn’t treat the entire population as a uniform blot france has opted
To divide the country into red and green zones which have slightly different rules red zones which include paris or where the virus is still circulating and the burden on intensive care units is high so parks for example can reopen in green zones but not red ones there is also a discussion on whether there should be different rules for young and old or at-risk
Groups medically speaking the young are the least at risk from the virus but possibly the hardest hit by lockdowns in terms of lost education and work each country will end up choosing its own distinctive path out of lockdown whether a government decides to reopen schools and restaurants or to allow more contact between households will depend on many things its
Capacity to track and trace how old its population is and it’s mix of urban and rural communities there may also be cultural considerations but for now as we wait for a vaccine keeping our down while society finds some kind of new normal is the only approach any nation can take
Transcribed from video
Coronavirus: how to stop a second wave | FT By Financial Times
