The next 18 months for all of us - here is the science

[EasterEggz]

If you haven't read this, now is the time. It explains exactly what the next 18 months are going to look like, why the government has switched from 'mitigation' to 'suppression', and what it means for all of us.

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3PQSzpObyq-ULWzwsNKvDHwPhri47wEsJSDqEJYX0dTzIw1JQc6wVSGCE

To crudely summarise... Be prepared for a long term change in our lifestyles, lasting until Summer 2021. The first wave will be suppression until July 2020, including school and university closures after Easter. There will then be a brief respite over late July / August to allow people a few more freedoms before the suppress measures come back in the Autumn. The suppress measures will be implemented thereafter on a rolling basis for shorter intense periods throughout the following year, all in a bid to keep the ICU need below the maximum capacity. It is all explained here.

I should clarify, that this assumes we will have a vaccine by Summer 2021.

Oh dear.

Anyone worried about their young child’s socialisation if most close interaction is off limits?

Thanks for the summary

Out of curiosity why does our government and science advisors think it's going to be different to China which is now getting back to normal after 4 months?

Not trying to be difficult here but I don't understand why it's different

@claireb707

Where did you hear that it’s back to normal? There are still children in Wuhan who haven’t left their apartments since January, still plenty of policing

Place marking

A friend lives in Xian, in China, he and his friends went for a pint, the first since the lockdown. So things appear to be returning to normal there.

Does this document indicate that we’ll have a relatively normal summer , so July and August?

@claireb707 China is reducing the number of deaths per day, but people are still dying. Most people in China are still isolating which obviously can't go on forever.

It's not back to normal but getting there, I've seen reports on BBC that says the kids are going back to school, factories are reopening etc

So no school closures until after Easter? Why?

@BiscuitLover2391 the deaths are from people coming into China though not the people that are already there

But they caveat the model with

1. Saying it is based on conservative/pessimistic assumptions:

“In each case, we represent the intervention mechanistically within the simulation, using plausible and largely conservative (i.e. pessimistic) assumptions about the impact of each intervention and compensatory changes in contacts (e.g. in the home) associated with reducing contact rates in specific settings outside the household. The model reproduces the intervention effect sizes seen in epidemiological studies and in empirical surveys of contact patterns.”

1. That their predictions have very large uncertainty. Things are likely to change as we gather more data.

“However, there are very large uncertainties around the transmission of this virus, the likely effectiveness of different policies and the extent to which the population spontaneously adopts risk reducing behaviours. This means it is difficult to be definitive about the likely initial duration of measures which will be required, except that it will be several months. Future decisions on when and for how long to relax policies will need to be informed by ongoing surveillance.” p15

And

1. That the recommended suppression may not succeed if applied long term.

“Results in this paper have informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in the last weeks. However, we emphasise that is not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term; no public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.”p16

I'm hopeful there'll be a vaccine before next summer.

The report is very good but the timeline is based around the assumption that it will come back after the summer. Surely if they have learned anything so far its that this virus is like the weather you can predict a certain amount in the future with high accuracy but the further into the future you go the less confidence you can have in the numbers!

This is VERY interesting and is clearly where the government is taking its advice from. This is definitely going to be several marathons back to back...no sprint!

Just a reminder that this is a model, with various caveats and assumptions, of which we have no way of knowing will actually happen.

Agree it's good to be prepared for the worst but we cannot say this will be the reality of the next 18 months for us.

As you said this is assuming no vaccine, but also no cure.

Right now there is rhe suggestion that two drugs in existence, already approved by the fda for human use, may cure it, malaria and hiv drugs, Australian medics are looking to roll out trials across fifty hospitals in Australia.

@Spiraeah lay off the racism. Not. Fucking. Helpful.

Yes there are all sorts of ways that disease can transfer from animals to humans. This one was because of the unhygienic practices that are allowed to happen in certain areas of China.

There is a drug being used experimentally in Poland right now, with some success in younger people on ventilation

My wife is Chinese and has regular contact with a Hospital based Doctor friend of hers in Shanghai. Things may be getting better in China but certainly not by the amount they say.

The propaganda machine is in overdrive over there.