I live in China and I'm terrified, shocked and saddened by the UK's response to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Staying in for 7 days when you show symptoms of a cough or fever is NOT ENOUGH. Washing your hands is NOT ENOUGH. Neither of these things is even close to enough.
Coronavirus is complicated because it can have up to a 2 week incubation period. That means that you could be walking about, right as rain, with Coronavirus for two weeks, without any symptoms. Let's say you are one of these people who starts showing symptoms on day 14, and so you decide to self-isolate for 7 days. By this point you have already been walking around spreading it to people for 2 weeks before you even realise you need to self-isolate!
The second issue is that some people have VERY mild symtoms - just regular cold symptoms, and would never have thought they had Coronavirus and needed to self-isolate! Some people don't even get a fever. And a few people get no symtoms whatsoever! So again, you'd be walking around thinking you're fine, just a slightly snotty nose, and you could be spreading Coronavirus to elderly and vulnerable people who will not be lucky enough for such mild symptoms.
Washing your hands is not enough. Why? Because if you come into contact with a person in one of the above cases, and you talk to them, or they cough or sneeze near you, you can still catch the virus because it can be spread through the air for up to a three metre radius. Washing your hands can't stop that. Wearing a mask CAN stop that - wearing a mask can ensure that if you have the virus and you don't know it, you will not be spreading it around to other people by coughing, sneezing, talking around them. Why are people almost mocking the wearing of masks in the Asian countries which have managed to drastically slow and almost totally stop the spread of the virus?
WHY is the government refusing to do anything? WHY has the NHS given totally inappropriate advice? WHY won't they close schools? I know that self-isolating isn't ideal. But it is essential or this disease will not go away.
My province in China was badly affected by the virus. It started mid-January, and a week later we were all told to self-isolate until further notice. So we did. It was that simple. We stayed inside, we ordered our shopping online and went downstairs to pick it up, no delivery men came to the front door and all staff still working (delivery men, shop staff) wore masks.
Some shops were still open, and you were allowed to go to them if you really needed to, but the rule was 1 person in every family could go every 3 days for supplies, and no more. It was essential to wear a mask when outside at all times.
The number of new cases started to slow down, slowly at first, and then drastically. It has been around 6 weeks since the virus first broke out in my province and there have now been no new cases for around 3 weeks. In one more week, the epidemic will officially be declared over (because according to the WHO, an epidemic is over when 2 times the incubation period of the disease has passed, and the incubation period for Coronavirus is 2 weeks).
And yes, self-isolating isn't ideal. I know some people can't go without the money. So this is for the government to work out. Here, they ensure that a living allowance was paid to everyone, and stopped payments on bills/rent until the epidemic was over. They assigned about 8 members of staff to every apartment compound (apartment compounds are HUGE so in the UK it could easily be done per street or per area) and these people took food to those who needed it, went to see you in your apartment if you needed help, called you a doctor if you felt unwell, brought you medicine if you needed it (for non-Coronavirus cases) or took you to quarentine if you showed symptoms of the virus. My point is, these things are for the government to work out.
I read yesterday that the government is saying that the peak of the Coronavirus in the UK won't be until about May. That's two months until the peak! By taking the right precautions, like other countries have, the epidemic could be over far more quickly.
The government have literally decided that it is better to risk thousands of lives than to take appropriate action and inconvenience people for a couple of weeks.
Remember, the virus outbreak was declared serious enough by the UK government that all citizens were advised to leave China immediately and return to the UK. But it's not serious enough for any precautions to be taken at home?
I don't know why I'm writing this. I just feel sick every time I read posters saying that washing your hands is enough. That staying in for a week once you show symptoms is enough. It ISN'T enough. And the virus will keep getting worse in the UK until people accept this.