How do you feel about SAGE advisers saying it's too early to ease lockdown restrictions?

[LittleFoxKit]

Just that really. In the past 24 hours its come to light that leading scientists in SAGE feel that the UK currently isnt prepared enough to start lifting lockdown restrictions, due to lacking working track and trace and testing not yet being adequate. This is compounded by some county's in england still having a R0 of 1+.

They have advised the government that in their collective opinion it's not yet safe as the appropriate measures which were outlined as requirements for reopening are not yet able to be implemented.

www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/05/29/scientists-say-its-too-early-to-ease-lockdown-amid-fears-over-warm-weekend/

Asked if he agreed it was too soon to ease more of the lockdown, Prof Horby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Actually, I do.

“You know, we have still got 8,000 cases a day. We have been very successful in bringing it down, decreasing the numbers because of the social distancing.”

But he said it was vital “we don’t lose control again”.

He said one of the important issues is the NHS Test and Trace system which has been rolled out across England with the help of 25,000 contact tracers.

But the programme will not be operational at a local level until the end of next month, while an accompanying app is delayed by several weeks.

Prof Horby added: “Sage has always been very clear that that needs to be in place and fully operational before social distancing can be safely relaxed.

“We are not entirely sure what the effect of relaxing the social measures will be, and so we need to have that safety net of the test, trace and isolate system.

www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23609W

John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said the government was taking a risk.

"Track and trace was only launched the day before yesterday, so we can't be sure that that is working effectively yet and yet we're going ahead and making these changes anyway," he told Sky News. "I think that that is rather dangerous."

Edmunds' comments were echoed by two other SAGE members: Peter Horby, also the chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), and Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust.
.........
Government officials have repeatedly said they are following "the science" as they respond to the pandemic, but Edmunds said the decision to ease the lockdown from Monday was political.

"My frustration has been recently at least that they're pretending that they're not making a decision, that in fact it's us who are making the decision, and that's not really the case," he said. "They have to make the decision and clearly they have"

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-scientists-urge-uk-stay-22111527

But Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust and a member of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said that "COVID-19 is spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England."

"TTI (test, trace, isolate) has to be in place, fully working, capable dealing any surge immediately, locally responsive, rapid results & infection rates have to be lower. And trusted," he said on Twitter
.....
John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of SAGE, said on Friday that "we are taking some risk here" with an "untested" test and trace system describing it as a political decision.

"The government here in Westminster clearly made a decision that this is the sort of level of incidence that they're willing to tolerate, the level of incidence here in the UK is significantly higher than similar countries around Europe," he told the BBC.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/covid-19-spreading-too-fast-to-lift-uk-lockdown-sage-adviser

Government advisers have voiced unease over the decision to lift England’s lockdown while thousands of people a day are still becoming infected with the coronavirus, warning that loosening restrictions could easily lead to a second wave.

“We cannot relax our guard by very much at all,” said John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who attends meetings of Sage, the scientific advisory group on emergencies.

There are still 8,000 new infections every day in England without counting those in hospitals and care homes, Edmunds said. “If you look at it internationally, it’s a very high level of incidence.” World Health Organization statistics suggest it is the fifth highest in the world

Edmunds’ call quickly won backing from other scientists with Jeremy Farrar, who also attends Sage and is director of the Wellcome Trust, tweeting: “Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England. Agree with John & clear science advice. TTI [test, trace and isolate] has to be in place, fully working, capable [of dealing with] any surge immediately.” He said results from tests would required quickly and “"infection rates have to be lower”. Farrar pointedly added that the authorities’ capabilities in these areas also had to be “trusted”.

It was for ministers to decide what to do, he said. That impact on health had to be set against the wider impact of the lockdown on society and the economy. “That’s clearly a political decision. It’s not a scientific decision,” he said.

And finally for those who state relaxing lockdown hasn't caused increases of cases elsewhere;

More than 200 schools which had reopened in South Korea on Wednesday were forced to close again today due to a new outbreak of coronavirus. The country reported 79 new cases on Thursday, the highest number in two months.

www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-one-in-seven-people-in-the-uk-have-had-visitors-at-home/#ixzz6Nvcuj4B5

I wont compare against Denmark as their numbers are completely not compatible to the UK in any way shape or form when they started to relax restrictions.

Most countries started easing lockdown at around the 400 new cases per day point. The UK has anywhere between 2000-8000 new cases a day (impossible to say due to testing methods and accessibility of testing). But that's still 4x the amount of cases then other countries who started to very slowly relax lockdown measures. And whom have seen bubbles of infection pop up in since and even their R values jump above 1.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/covid-19-clusters-emerge-as-lockdowns-ease-across-europe

People do realise that a proportion of the excess deaths are caused by the lock down rather than Covid right?
While all cause excess deaths is a good measure to compare the responses of different countries (because the aim of the response should be to minimise all deaths, not just those from Covid) it is an appalling measure to accurately measure the numbers dying from Covid.

I think we should be listening to the many scientists saying that we should not leave lockdown yet.

I think we should be asking why the Government has abandoned its own 5 tests that were supposed to be met before we did that.

I think that we should be holding the Government to account on this crucial decision, because if they lift lockdown contrary to the advice of the scientists, and there is a large second wave, with tens of thousands more deaths, it will be the Government that is culpable for mass murder.

I strongly believe the correct response would have been a compulsory lock down with no exceptions for those over state pension age (including having to have shopping delivered etc), a voluntary lock down for those under that age with certain preexisting conditions that put them at the greatest risk, and encouraging everyone else who faces a minuscule risk to continue with most parts of life as normal.

SAGE guidance has to be balanced against other factors, obviously. I'm delighted that the shops are re-opening, I'll be there.

"SAGE guidance has to be balanced against other factors, obviously."

There's balancing it, and there's ignoring it completely...

Why has our Government gone for the latter approach?

@effingterrified
We can't just listen to epidemiologists who are solely interested in the number of deaths from the virus. We also need to listen to experts in other fields such as mental health and suicide prevention, economists, cancer specialists, behavioural scientists, and the business community, as the virus isn't the only risk facing society and it would be extremely dangerous to overlook all other risks in order to minimise one virus. Such other experts are consistently saying that a continued lock down may well cause more deaths in other ways than it will safe from Covid, and even more concernedly these deaths are likely to be greater amongst the younger and healthier parts of society who are very unlikely to die from Covid which then opens up a whole new ethical argument about whether it is ethical to knowingly kill people to save others.

We have no way of knowing what caused the excess deaths at this point. We may well find that many of the additional strokes and heart attacks were also caused by Covid-19, as we become increasingly aware of its effects on blood clotting.

There's a strong belief that suicides have doubled due to the lock down, clearly these deaths are nothing to do with corona and are entirely down to the lock down. The number of heart attack and stroke patients is also significantly down compared to normal so either people are having a new form of heart attack that kills quicker than the usual one or it is people avoiding hospital due to the lock down and not corona that is causing such excess deaths.

There's a strong belief that suicides have doubled

Who has said that and how did they form that opinion?

Also, and I'm not sure how significant this is compared against the other numbers, but it estimated that 1752 people have not died during the coronavirus outbreak in the UK alone because of the drop in air pollution.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/30/clean-air-in-europe-during-lockdown-leads-to-11000-fewer-deaths

And so could be important to factor that drop when assessing the excess deaths from coronavirus.

The scientists aren’t saying “remain in lockdown indefinitely”, as a lot of PPs are scoffing; they’re saying remain for a couple more weeks, until tti is in place and infection rates fall. This would be absolutely in time with most other countries, who locked down earlier because they were ‘ahead’ of our rates and who are mow starting to unlock. We left it a bit too late and are coming out a lot too early. Those suffering from lockdown now will suffer all the more when a second wave comes, without the financial etc support that’s been in place for this first wave. Jobs will be lost permanently, the feeling of isolating after having tasted freedom will be appalling, and the impact will be devastating.

I would imagine they are worried that if/when the death toll starts to soar as a result of this, the government will blame the ‘science’. Which thru probably will!

I think we should wait two more weeks and see how the travel and trace is going.

TTI is a show pony, being used to roll back the scaremongering that has made so many low-risk people terrified to go about their normal lives.If you come in contact with an infect person you have to self isolate but you can't have a test unless you're symptomatic. So you have to stay indoors for 14 days, potentially for nothing. How many people are going to tolerate that happening once, never mind more than once?

I'm afraid I agree with this. The idea of people being told they have to isolate for 14 days without knowing if they actually need to or not is completely ludicrous. If people have come into contact with a person who has tested positive, they should be tested also.

Can you imaging someone coming back to work for a fortnight, going off for another fortnight, coming back, having to isolate for 14 more days after a week back at work....all without knowing whether or not it is even necessary?

Or have I misunderstood the plan completely?

HesterShaw1 - track and trace works fine in lots of other countries - those with very low death rates.

I agree with you that our government have mishandled it atrociously, particularly by insisting on developing their own app, wasting weeks in the process when there was one ready to go that was being used successfully internationally already.

It's hard to see a reason for that decision, particularly as the app they have developed has massive privacy concerns, doesn't work and will therefore probably not be widely used.

Not all scientists will agree (that's why there are lots from different disciplines in SAGE). There are so many variables. They are all be asking to predict what will happen and no one actual can say for definite.

I am more concerned in this country that people want someone to
blame for all this (politician/scientist/China - take your pick) and I am concerned everyone wants to get out their "concerns" so they aren't in the firing life.

As others have pointed out if we suddenly get a vaccine then everyone will be hailing New Zealand. If we don't and we just have to wait for the virus to become endemic then everyone will be praising Sweden.

I personally am happy that restrictions have been slightly lifted. I think in fact there will be better compliance. People can cope with a lot, but not being able to see family and friends (even from 2 m away) is so hard.

I am not hearing any of the SAGE scientists coming out in support of easing restrictions on Monday, only against it.

Thanks @LittleFoxKit for those links.

I think people who are scornful about others who are reluctant to "return to normal" probably don't know anyone who became ill weeks or even months ago but still haven't recovered fully.

It's not all about the likelihood of dying - it's about what the quality of your life would be afterwards if you did become ill.

How effective can the track and trace program be when SAGE reckon only 50% of people with symptoms are isolating?

Surely it's going to be a lot lower if people haven't got any symptoms?

There's balancing it, and there's ignoring it completely

There are 55 people listed in SAGE on the Gov website. Many will have differing opinions.

We knew that from the press conference Thursday. It was obvious the scientists where not happy about releasing lockdown further, and hence reiterating the number of cases etc

However lots on MN believe economy trumps humans

The easing on Monday

car showrooms - can't see there being a rush there - not much extra risk
markets - mostly already open so again not much extra risk
schools - lots of schools in areas with a high R have chosen not to open, most schools are saying that of the 3 years that can go back many kids aren't, evidence that it will push up R massively is dodgy. So may not be a huge risk. South Korea schools shut due to an outbreak in adults in a factory / workplace in the area, it was a sensible precaution to stop spread.
six people meeting - outdoors maintaining social distance this is low risk

The easing in 2 weeks feels worrying, I think we need 3-4 weeks before the next step.

What is the risk is that SOME people are just ignoring it all and there seems little to stop them. People get flamed for noticing people flouting lockdown, get called curtain twitchers and worse. How do we get people to comply???

i strongly believe the correct response would have been a compulsory lock down with no exceptions for those over state pension age (including having to have shopping delivered etc), a voluntary lock down for those under that age with certain preexisting conditions that put them at the greatest risk, and encouraging everyone else who faces a minuscule risk to continue with most parts of life as normal.

Yet some experts claim this doesn’t work that well in practice and those shielding can’t escape transmission to a high degree if virus still high in the community. Need carers etc. Ferguson’s report modelled doing this and it still predicted 250,000 deaths. Yes, I know a model and not guaranteed. Also asking these people to lockdown for much longer by this method.

I agree Furforks. The first changes are not dramatic and should be OK, but need to be followed rigorously, and they probably won't be. But I think people have loosened themselves anyway.

It seems pretty clear they need a second wave sooner rather than later. They have the capacity in hospitals now, life in lockdown is more bearable for most in the summer. They should be open about it and provide proper information and genuine choice for workers. This approach is shitty for retail workers, teachers, TAs etc.

However lots on MN believe economy trumps humans

I don’t disagree but also second wave will affect economy too if requires another strict lockdown. Seems a lot of indicators that govt are adopting high risk strategy beginning some easing now and not waiting that little longer until numbers lower. If there is a second wave and even further significant number of deaths (number now is bad enough) occur I hope people remember government’s decision to not wait a little longer.