"Must open up slowly to avoid another lockdown"

[yeOldeTrout]

Explain to me how that works? I never quite get it.

The scenario where I imagine this statement is true..

Vaccine is very effective. Fast opening would mean opening before vaccine got to most everyone, did its magic, so hence need slow lifting restrictions or a lockdown would be needed because vaccine not yet given to everyone.

Is there another scenario where 'very slow' lifting of lockdown is still right way to proceed if goal is to prevent future lockdowns?

Where case numbers are low enough and testing is high enough a slow easing of lockdown allows track and trace a greater chance effective at informing contacts they need to isolate.

The reason is that we just don't know what will happen next - not with enough certainty to warrant putting ourselves (for a third time) in a situation with surging numbers of cases and struggling to cope.

While the current vaccines provide excellent protection against hospitalisation/death against the current UK variants, they are certainly not bullet-proof. Furthermore there is yet insufficient data as to the protection the give against other variants. Finally, a high rate of infection within a community half-vaccinated makes it highly likely new vaccine-evading strains will emerge.

The ideal situation is that we use vaccinations coupled with restrictions to keep R at or below 1. As more are vaccinated, R stays low which gives us more reign to relax restrictions further.

The idea is that eventually a combination of vaccinations, testing and perhaps some social distancing measures - e.g. masks, we can keep R < 1 permanently.

Ah! So another scenario is that slow lifting might facilitate good contact & trace? Until C&T doesn't work any more, like it stopped working in Germany.

Yeah I don't know what will happen next either, but I was trying to follow the logic of why a slow lifting of restrictions would lead very specifically to "No more lockdowns". It's the path to that objective (no more lockdowns) rather than all the other benefits I wanted to understand.

So another scenario is that slow lifting -> lower chance of more infectious or vaccine-evasive variants taking hold?

I wonder what variants there are in India, Mexico, Bulgaria... and how they will be kept out long term.

No one preventative measure is enough to control a contagious disease. Imagine a scenario without vaccinations available. We would still need to reopen in stages to allow areas of concern to become apparent. This is exactly the same scenario but with the added layer of protection from vaccines so much more reason to be optimistic.

Similar to how the Kent variant emerged in some respects; at the end of the second lockdown this was one area that was showing growth in cases against the national trend of declining cases. If the reopening date then hadn’t been so rigidly adhered to (as was the pressure from a group of MP’s primarily supportive of economic concerns at the time) we could have had the opportunity to tackle it under lockdown conditions.

Slow opening is just to do so when cases are as low as possible & the most at risk had a least once shot of vaccine, if not both. The next phase in April is still all outdoors so cases should remain low-ish. Schools have not had the increases in cases expected. In fact they’ve been very flat. Certainly nothing like we saw in September. Then between April & 17th May, there’s 5 weeks. 5 more weeks of vaccinations. Millions more protected or further protected. May will be the real test I think!

I do think the actual dates are a bit arbitrary. But I suppose they have to pick sometime! I’ve got the in-laws coming to stay on 16th May instead of the 17th as its DD’s birthday. I won’t lose any sleep over the one days difference!

@yeOldeTrout why did C& T stop working in Germany? Thank you.

I gather variant is blamed for (what was a great German programme of) C&T not containing the German outbreak any more. Seems a bit simplistic but is what many say. C&T doesn't work to control virus when there is a lot of virus around so whatever makes the virus takes off, means virus can escape the powers of C&T. What others said about containment being multi-faceted is true.

I do think the actual dates are a bit arbitrary. But I suppose they have to pick sometime

I think they’ve been scheduled apart based on the time it can take an outbreak in an area to show up with a degree of certainty to allow for minor fluctuations. That way they can see relatively clearly where the source is and hopefully manage it from there. Well that makes sense to me.

@yeOldeTrout

Ah! So another scenario is that slow lifting might facilitate good contact & trace? Until C&T doesn't work any more, like it stopped working in Germany.

Yeah I don't know what will happen next either, but I was trying to follow the logic of why a slow lifting of restrictions would lead very specifically to "No more lockdowns". It's the path to that objective (no more lockdowns) rather than all the other benefits I wanted to understand.

So another scenario is that slow lifting -> lower chance of more infectious or vaccine-evasive variants taking hold?

I wonder what variants there are in India, Mexico, Bulgaria... and how they will be kept out long term.

C&T didn't "stop working" in Germany - it became less effective largely due to the Kent strain being more transmittable and as someone else said, the higher the rate of infections, the less contribution C&T can make to combatting them.

As far as variants arising elsewhere in the world - they will, but it's easier to keep out something from abroad, than it is to combat a home-grown variant - by the time you've realised the latter is a problem there's already thousands of cases to deal with - look how quickly the Kent strain spread across the UK vs say the SA strain.

Thanks

Virus gonna virus, who knew!