The Fit, The Symptomatic and The Vulnerable - Virus Eradication Day.

The Fit, The Symptomatic and The Vulnerable - Stopping The Spread is Possible.


What will it take to arrive at Virus Eradication Day?
on re-reading this there's too many words, my writing feels clumsy, there is too much repetition - I am leaving it that way because well, it bears repeating - the UK Government Policy on Corona Virus is a disastrous policy, and it is causing avoidable harms to vulnerable people.

1. Fit healthy people who have contracted the virus without presenting any symptoms can and do spread the virus in the community.

2. Symptomatic people spread the virus at home.

3. To stop the spread we need supportive shut down, social distancing and we need Government to adapt buildings as fever hospitals to treat symptomatic cases at the earliest stages, rather than more critical care hospitals. We also need contact tracing and testing to chase down all cases of infection and all potential cases of infection, until we know where the virus has been, where it is and there it has not yet appeared.

Creating Fever Hospitals protects existing hospitals, allows us to concentrate skilled ICU facilities where they already exist and where such services can be more readily expanded, with the skills close at hand so that training is easier because of the existing skill base.

4. The vulnerable will suffer the worst consequences. That has to be our shared concern, a collective duty of care.

About 15 million people in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland live with a long-term health condition. Long-term conditions or chronic diseases are conditions for which there is currently no cure, and which are managed with drugs and other treatment, for example: diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arthritis and hypertension.

5. Then there are the most serious concerns with the situation within the 15, 570 care homes in the UK, where people being cared for have been isolated, by Government order, away from close family. As if the date of this blog one third of care homes have infection outbreaks. We know now that cared for elders are contracting the infection, (through care workers who move between care settings) and this is having fatal consequences, with no measures in place to enable some close family to have access at such a critical time. Awful.

Things to consider, at pace - Possibilities such as testing an entire family group for virus or anti-bodies to ascertain who might be infected or immune within family groups, so that they can be screened for safe entry. The creation of facilities for changing into PPE for visits. The treatment of elders with symptoms at Fever Clinics rather than within care homes where they become spreaders.  There's a huge gap in provision to assess the needs and provide support for the welfare of the cared for, and their families. 

6. Everyone looking at the situation really ought to be fully conscious of this important characteristic of health within the UK population. Chronic Disease with no cure. Such a large part of the population at extra risk must concern all of us.

5. Among that portion of the population with chronic conditions, those exposed to the viral infection who then develop the disease COVID19 will endure many, far too many, early avoidable, horrible deaths. In  large numbers.  Am I repeating myself?  I am. It rarely gets mentioned in the media reports.

7. There is no vaccine, and none in sight.  Bear that in mind at all times. I am repeating myself. Some things need to be repeated.

8. Suppression of Virus and eradication from within a given population is possible.

That is what New Zealand and Vietnam and  Ireland have chosen. It will work. Others have taken this path. For very sound economic and epidemiological reasons. They will close their borders, and demand quarantine for all incoming travellers.  They will have to - they will have to police their borders assertively as a matter of health and safety for the whole population and their economy.

Here is a chart of how different countries are faring, with different approaches.

https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries

Suppression and eradication is a finite process, it does have an end in sight, running as it typically does for 8 - 12 weeks, or a bit longer, when done correctly with full resourcing and effort - once the virus is eradicated from within a given population, maintaining a tight quarantine, with a vigilant detection and suppression internal and active health system protects the population.

9. The economic cost of a suppression of Virus and eradication protocol will always be less that the economic cost of multiple waves of a slow the spread policy.

10. It does mean that external tourism is replaced with internal tourism. That means more money is circulated within that population. That is a benefit.

11. A slow spread policy is inherently uncontrollable - as soon as there is a relaxation, community spread will escalate within a matter of a few days or within a week, and any surge in infection rate will demand another tighter shut down.  The costs of a cycle of surge, shutdown, release, surge shutdown, release , surge, shutdown will be vast by comparison.

12. That cyclical pattern will be open ended. There is no vaccine, and none in sight. Nothing to stop the virus other than an assertive suppression and eradication program.

Therefore that pattern will continue until the mythical 'herd immunity' or maximum infection within the population is realised, which is 93% of the population - and that inevitably means infecting the 15 million people in the UK who suffer from chronic diseases with immune compromised status.

13. It is practically impossible to protect that many people - the only way you protect the vulnerable is by protecting the whole population through suppressing the virus transmission until it ceases.

14. If The UK Prime Minister, his advisors, The Cabinet, SAGE, Dominic Cummings and The Behavioural Insights Team had chosen the correct policy for dealing with an infectious pathogen where no vaccine or medical curative existed - suppression of transmission leading to eradication of the active virus within the population, we would be celebrating Virus Eradication Day.

15, We probably need to quarantine the UK Prime Minister, his advisors, The Cabinet, SAGE, Dominic Cummings and The Behavioural Insights Team until we have stopped the spread and eradicated the virus from the UK population.

Virus Eradication Day. 

Think about that, what it means.

We are not celebrating today. 

VE day is a poignant commemoration rather than a celebration.

I do not blame the virus. I do not blame the Chinese.

I wish to hold this UK Government to account - the avoidable early deaths are largely on their account. The extra damage to the economy is largely on their account.

Read about the 8-12 week suppression protocol in these two articles.



A song to affirm the viability of this.
CD Quality download, playable online: 

mp3 quality download, playable online: 



Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

Thank you for reading this blog.

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Stop the Spread Explained: Healthy people are the main spreaders, vulnerable people suffer the most.



Stop the Spread Explained - as best as I can manage as a lay person.

My attempt to explain in laymans terms what Stopping the Spread of an infectious disease is all about, when we have no vaccine and no preventative treatment - and yes, healthy fit people are the primary spreaders of the infection because they move about a lot more than chronically ill people do, and they do not present with as much symptoms, so they can spread and not be aware of it. Wearing masks takes this into account, It is a precautionary measure. . No blame here, this is just how this SARSCOV2 virus functions. And people with chronic disease and immune system compromised status are the ones who suffer the worst effects. That's a lot of people - in the UK it is 15 million people, in the USA it is 83 million people. A family, society or culture is very much defined by how it relates to and treats the most vulnerable within it.

Stop the spread, eliminate the virus from a population, be it a village, a town, a city, a region or a country is a whole raft of measures that are designed to stop the spread of infection when there is no vaccine - that means to get to a point where there is no more active virus in the population within the given zone or territory. It is not a pick n mix list, any country dedicated to eliminating the virus from the population must do all of it. The weakest link must be strengthened to ensure the whole program works most efficiently.

If the virus cannot find new human hosts, it cannot replicate.

Transmission of infection across the community ceases. It stops finding new human hosts.

Then the vulnerable are much better protected.

That is what we ought to be aiming for.

* Important repetitive note : this virus is primarily spread by healthy people who show no symptom and the people it harms the most are those who have chronic disease conditions that compromise their immune response. Other super spreaders are people with symptoms left to self treat at home, in shared living spaces, apartment complexes.

Tourists, Immigrants and Business people travelling on air travel, in cruise ships, on holidays and so on, were the primary vectors of this infectious viral disease.

In the UK the population with chronic conditions and immune compromised status numbers some 15 million people, and it is not just the elderly, over 70s or people in care homes (441,000). In the US that population is 83 million.

Across all developed states, the numbers of potentially vulnerable people are significant.

The vulnerable are much  larger part of our population than anyone has really acknowledged.

It is worth noting that a small percentage of healthy people with no known or unknown underlying conditions also suffer some of the worst effects. So there is a risk, a gamble so to speak, even if it is very tiny, for healthy people who are exposed to the virus.

But for the vulnerable that risk is much, much greater. It is not a gamble they need imposed upon them.

The task before us, therefore, is to protect the vulnerable population by stopping the virus in it's tracks.

It doesn't necessitate heavy lock down, even though some states have used that.

Usually the reason for heavy shut down is that the virus has been allowed to go further than it ought to have been allowed. Shut down is a response to uncontrolled transmission.

Learning from experience?

UK Government Economic and Political policy was to not panic, in order to 'protect the economy'. In essence to deliberately allow the viral infection to run through the population, which was touted as 'herd immunity' - an a-scientific 'theory'. That was the original position,

While that aspect of the policy was 'dropped' (they stopped mentioning it) , and then denied, (they claimed it was never part of their considerations - an outright lie)  the policy of allowing a slow spread has been  maintained, and as such it has amounted to a continuation of the same policy - let the people take it on the chin, the healthy will gain immunity, shut the vulnerable away for 12 weeks.

There is no scientific basis for this policy, and certainly no public health basis whatsoever.

Vietnam and New Zealand acted early, and assertively, they acted as soon as any cases emerged.

First known case in UK was confirmed on 31st January, a Chinese couple returning from China to Newcastle, it was announced January 31st.  They had been in country for at least a week before that confirmation. The Wuhan epidemic was in full flow, and the UK was still receiving travellers from China, with no health checks at an UK travel entry points.

At that stage Italy was also seeing confirmed cases, and the beginnings of an epidemic, with thousands of ski holiday travellers from UK returning from Italy over February, without adequate checking or quarantine at entry to the UK, there was more infection being imported into the UK.

The time to act assertively is always as soon as the first cases emerge that are confirmed. A point worth repeating. It is also true that assertive action to quell community transmission must be taken at all times. You cannot allow even a slow spread of an infectious disease when you have neither vaccine nor treatment.

That said even if the infection has hit 10, or 15 or 20 percent of a population, when there is no vaccine, the stop the spread or suppression of virus protocols still apply and can still be implemented, and if done well, the policy will work.

The basic suppression of virus infection protocol is this :

A. From the very first cases, Government must give the citizens accurate clear direct information on the virus, how it is transmitted, and be transparent and honest in all communications - the first suggestion is that all mass events, public transport etc be curtailed - these are super spreader events. The UK government failed on that policy as Cheltenham Racing weekend was allowed to happen and a number of Football matches were allowed to go ahead.

People are asked to stay home for 8-12 weeks.

The State must support the citizens income for that period, and it must be fairly distributed, so that they can bear the burden.

All that money will be channelled into the local economies, which eases the stress on the economy at the local level. It is not wasted money. It is an investment in the health and welfare of the people.

B. Social distancing principles are put in place, to slow the spread, to give time for contact tracing etc, to work.

The Government must always be ensuring that people are very well informed as to why - you do not want to order people, you want to give them exact, detailed evidence based information. so that they are engaged in the process.

C. It is obvious that all social care and medical facilities must be fully equipped with PPE and other technical and logistical support for dealing with infectious disease, and have the ability to maintain standard services for the people who need their attention and care.

In China and Vietnam they created isolation treatment hospitals fever hospitals,  for treatment of people at the earliest possible stage of symptoms, to keep those ill people who were shedding viral away from the community. This stopped the spread and reduced cases escalating to severe or critical.

This must be enabled in both public and private care and health care settings. This means that they must be set up away from main hospitals. There can be no cutting corners in either environment.

D. The same applies to all institutional residential settings. If prisoners become infected,they must be removed from general population and treated in isolation.

E. We do not need health care 'heroes' - we need health care properly supported, well trained, not over stretched or over worked. UK has failed on all these areas.

(East Asian states had SARS and MERS in recent memory so their populations were alert to the methods having gone through them previously. )

Here is the basic process:

1. A case turns up at hospital or GP surgery, saying "I have fever, cough etc since yesterday." The earlier they report better. This is not a 'flu to be treated at home.

2. That person is tested (not just for SARSVOC2 Virus, but also for Flu and other Fever inducing diseases) and if found positive, with any infectious disease, is placed into treatment away from main hospital services in a Fever Hospital.

Government covers their income for the duration of their stay, average 2 weeks.

The Chinese and others have learned that Fever Hospitals are an effective way to treat cases of a specific virus or pathogen away from existing services so that escalation of cases are reduced, and so that cases can get the earliest and best possible treatment available. This reduces case fatality rates and protects main hospital ICU units. Those main hospital units can be expanded, and staff trained, more readily than entirely new ICU Hospitals can be built and staffed.

3. The person is questioned on his or her movements going back a week (standard incubation time, during which he or she might have been shedding viral particles that could infect other people) to draw a list of potential infectees - the list will be every person that the case spent more than 15 minutes with, in close contact, with attention paid to any public transport or crowded areas.

4. Contact tracing teams go out and visit each of those contacts, to check for symptoms, give advice and inform them of a 2 week quarantine - if they have symptoms, they go to Fever Hospital, with a contact trace carried out of their case. If no symptoms they are advised to stay on quarantine, and get in touch if any symptoms emerge - Government covers their weekly income for the 2 weeks of quarantine.

5. Repeat this for all cases and what you are doing is slowly but surely isolating all active infections, keeping an eye on potential new cases and finding out where people who have had the virus and had no symptoms are. And yes, teams of well trained people, who are good communicators must be assembled for this task to cover a large outbreak. I repeat that if Government is doing it's job, the communications of what is needed will be clear to all citizens, and they will have confidence in the teams of contact tracers, and will engage.

6. This is essential on closing down on the active virus. Chase every case, all contacts until no new cases emerge.

It is labour intensive, and smart phone tech can help make it a bit easier, but it cannot replace the human contact point - for example if an outbreak of cases occurs in your town, or neighbourhood, everyone is notified, by text or map, and people go into extra tight shut down, with hyper awareness of what to do if they get symptoms, vulnerable people get isolation treatment to protect them from being infected, people can provide help in shopping etc..

7. This helps being more precise in action, it can work without a major shut down if people wear masks, follow the protocols and are well disciplined - in the UK people are well disciplined, but the media have hyped the few who were not..

Contact tracing and mass testing makes the virus visible. 

That's the point. If we know where it is, then we can close it down
.
Obviously quarantine is essential at the borders of any territory, for all incoming travel, to maintain a virus free zone.

At their own expense, if foreign travellers or business, and if nationals returning, then the state funds it - use hotels close to entry points. This must be mandatory as the risk in not doing it is to great.

It is a process that has been tried and tested, it was developed during 1917-18 Flu Pandemic (even though they had no testing, or phones they applied the other human labour aspects and it worked well in limiting spread where it wass applied) and then refined during SARS in 2002-3, and MERS in 2012, Ebola  in 2013 -16.

It is an essential process for when an infectious pathogen is active and there is no vaccine or preventative treatment, and it has lethal outcomes for a significant part of a population.

In the case of this virus, it is spread rapidly by health fit people who show no obvious signs and for this reason shut downs are designed to slow the spread - and then you need the protocol above to STOP the spread. If you shut down, and do not follow the other protocols, there will be a drop off of infection rate, and as soon as you open up again, it will take off.

If we do not stop the spread, and eradicate the virus within a population it will continue to be passed around and that will expose those who are vulnerable because it's movement is invisible.

I wrote this song as an upbeat political protest song comparing New Zealand and others with USA and UK. There is room for more than hope in this crisis because we see proof positive of the stop the spread protocols.




this track is available as a free download as a .wav file (High res) on Soundcloud (above)

 or on Reverbnation as an ,mp3 file.


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Useful links

Short paper: Did we Eradicate SARS? Lessons Learned and the Way Forward

https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.001017.pdf

Guardian Article: "I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidemiologist-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

Lancet paper on: Can we contain the COVID-19 outbreak with the same measures as for SARS?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30129-8/fulltext

Wiki Page : Eradication of Infectious Diseases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseases

NHS England : Corona Virus - Expert Interview - What is contact tracing?

https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/13/expert-interview-what-is-contact-tracing

Time Article : What We Can Learn From Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong About Handling Coronavirus

https://www.time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore-hong-kong-taiwan/

PR news article : Korean Government Communications during Corona Virus Epidemic

https://www.prnewsonline.com/South+Korea-coronavirus-communication

Vietnam's story - How Vietnam is winning its 'war' on coronavirus

https://www.dw.com/en/how-vietnam-is-winning-its-war-on-coronavirus/a-52929967

New Zealand:  New Zealand has ‘effectively eliminated’ coronavirus. Here’s what they did right

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/2020/04/what-new-zealand-did-right-in-battling-coronavirus/


Fever Hospitals in Wuhan

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30744-3/fulltext

Fever Hospitals

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078397/china-style-makeshift-hospitals-could-help-coronavirus-hit


Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

Thank you for reading this blog.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received



The Fit, The Chronically ill, Poverty and the Economy - between a rock and a hard place. Stop the Spread.

The thing that strike me most about this virus SARSCOV2 is that it is a highly infectious viral infection, in that it transmits from human to human with relative ease.

There is a period where the infected person shows no symptoms,  the person feeling no symptoms is wholly unaware of it and is therefore spreading the virus to other human beings without knowing that he or she is a vector of the viral spread.

Therefore  the virus can run through any culture where there are many large group phenomena such as international travel on planes, boats, trains, shared public transport, pubs, clubs, football matches, prisons, care homes, parliaments, apartment blocks, temples of all kinds and large family homes and much else besides.

There is a blind spot among some fit healthy people that I have been feeling into and I will explore what this is in this article. "It can't be all that bad."



The dynamics of close urban living organisation and a silent virus.



In effect an invisible spread before any signs of it happening ever emerge.

Many people will become infected and they will show no symptoms at all. Their immune systems get on top of the virus before it causes any problems. Nobody is any the wiser. Nobody is at fault. We do not know why this is the case. All we have to go on is the experience. What happens.

Fit, healthy people can pretty much shake it off.  There are exceptions, of course, and whilst media tend to hype those or minimise them, we are still learning about the disease state as we go and fear is not really useful, whereas caution is.

Stay calm, act responsibly for the whole community.

For the people with strong immune systems the viral infection appears to them to be a not so serious problem. For some it's not. There is no way to predict in advance if one is one of the unlucky few. It is a gamble, a risk.

For people whose immune system is compromised, the issue becomes the disease, COVID19.

The disease is what happens when the virus begins to replicate faster than the body's immune system can cope with, and starts to impact on the body. When the body's immune system response is not robust enough to stall the viral replication which destroys body tissue.

That is what the disease is - the destruction of tissues within the body as the virus takes over cells and then destroys the cell once it has replicated many more copies within the cell, releasing the replicates which seek out new cells and these repeat the cycle, thus destroying enough cells to cause a variety of breakdowns depending upon which tissue is affected, that can then lead towards death : liver, kidney, gut, lungs and heart can all be impacted.

The disease COVID19 is really, really dangerous to a significant percentage of those who have chronic immune compromising health issues, or co-morbidity's.

That is why the Government and NHS has issued instructions to people at risk to shield themselves.

If you can imagine what it is like to live in what is called shielded status, where you cannot be touched by anyone in your immediate family, for months on end, for a year, for a year and a half. A situation where everything that comes to you has to be washed and cleaned, a situation where all your facilities such bath, toilet, clothes washing and handling and all your cooking, if they are shared,  must be policed with constant attention to detail every time anyone in your household uses those shared facilities. Imagine being confined to one room.  Imagine have to think about every move you might make outside that one room.

Add to that the conflicting narratives that percolate across news media and social media, spreading confusion and uncertainty, and then we can see that there is an extra avoidable element of situational  stress loaded onto people who are already dealing with significant stresses not of their own making.

Can you imagine living as an elder in care home that is shielded? The complexity and pressures that are added to those that already exist? What must it be like to be a carer at home?

What must it be like for carers working in large care homes?

In the UK population of people with multiple conditions is about 15 million people.  Not all are shielded of course. There are degrees of vulnerability.

In the USA it is about 83 million people.

The existing data from around the world suggests that about 20% of that cohort will, if exposed to the virus, experience severe and critical symptoms of the disease, and about half of those will potentially become fatal. Breakdown of the bodies systems and organs. This is a horrific way to die. 

How do we protect those people?

To protect the 10%  most at risk we must protect all of those people who could be vulnerable.

Co-morbidity, Disability and Vulnerability within a stressed culture.

The impact of multiple stressors on the human body and psyche that arise from living within a culture where chronic stress and inter-generational trauma patterns remain largely unresolved is well understood in the medical world and not widely understood across the grass roots.

Observe  how even media will publish articles that castigate people suffering from obesity: fat shaming is one aspect. Blaming smokers, suggesting they are doing it to themselves and should pay for their treatment, whilst protecting the Tobacco makers, even though we know that smoking involves addiction, The NHS offers treatment for that and other addictions.

There is the all too common negative attitude towards disabled people.

This makes gathering the intention of the population to focus on the needs of the vulnerable more difficult than in ought to be. Nonetheless the majority of people are decent, and will take into consideration the vulnerabilities of their fellow citizens.

To protect the vulnerable, those people with multiple combined health issues, the only proven strategy is to stop them from getting the infection in the first place.

They must not meet the virus.

We do not have a vaccine. There are no medicines that can reliably prevent escalation of the disease or can be used as treatments of the disease. There is evidence that vitamin D and C have offer some degree of immune system boost. There is evidence reducing stress reduces immune system effectiveness, so it stands to reason that reducing stress improves immune response.

SARS was a corona virus pandemic that happened in 2003.  It was less infectious than SARSCOV2  but more more lethal, with a case fatality rate of 60%, and because it generated symptoms rapidly it was much easier to trace and close down.

We still have no vaccine for that particular virus. The Governments in countries affected by SARS working with the WHO,  informed populations of the threat and what needed to be done, contact tracing, quarantine, treatment in isolation, limiting movement for a period, and they stopped the spread, and in time eradicated the virus from the population. The same procedure was applied in 197-18 epidemic. The process has been learned over a 100 year term, with new learnings since SARS in 2003. In clearest terms we know that suppression of transmission can lead to elimination of transmission, and that cause eradication of a virus that cannot live outside a human body.

We hear talk of a vaccine.

However vaccines are very difficult to make, and even more difficult to test to the degree that they can safely be used across entire populations. Such is the risk that Governments indemnify vaccine makers from litigation and financial compensation that arise when a few cases of vaccination cause severe and lethal reactions.

There are only two strategies that can protect vulnerable people in this situation.

One strategy is to isolate all vulnerable people from the general population, to isolate them from any possible community infection vector.  To enclose them behind a virus proof barrier.

That is really, really really difficult, and made much more difficult if you allow the rest of the population to slowly become infected while you wait for a vaccine. Waiting for a vaccine is not a health and safety protocol. Slow spread is not a health and safety protocol.

Those who service the vulnerable must  also be isolated from the general population.

If they become exposed,  then they must be set away from the vulnerable until they become provably immune, and can then re-introduced to continue their caring work - but they will still have to adopt clean site protocols upon entry into each caring facility as they could still carry the virus in by fomite transmission. Or they must live and work within the isolate environment of the point of care situation.

You have to somehow generate a population of immune people to service the vulnerable to maintain that separation from the virus, and you have to maintain that population in constant state of vigilant surveillance for viral particle presence.

The other way to protect the vulnerable is to stop the spread across the entire population.

That is to say to eliminate the transmission of the virus from within a given population, which leads to eradication of the virus. Stop the spread, spread the love.

This is also difficult, but it is proven. We know it works.

It was proven in SARS and MERS, and in other outbreaks of infectious disease where human to human transmission was the vector of spread. Suppression of the spread of infection, leading to elimination of community transmission and eventual eradication when the virus can find no new human hosts, and it dies out.

The process is complex, yes. It requires a lot of human resources, and a lot of co-ordinated action willingly undertaken by citizens, businesses and state officials. What makes it complicated are political and economic agendas intruding on the Health and Safety requirements.

New Zealand, Vietnam and others are showing that stopping the spread is a viable policy choice, across very different populations and economies.

Economics and Health and Safety.

Governments that have chosen the slow spread approach have all done so for economic and political reasons, not for health and safety or public health reasons.

And there is another dynamic that clouds the judgement of many people in this matter, going back to the start of this article.

Fit, healthy people are to a large degree thinking of and quite rightly concerned with how any of the protocols to stop the spread, social distancing, contact tracing and quarantine of workers, and a general shut down impacts them, their jobs and livelihoods. Because of the media narrative that the disease does not affect fit, healthy people, that many if not most will have no symptoms or will experience very mild symptoms,they are not so much worried about getting the infection and suffering severe symptoms.

Many believe that getting the infection will grant them immunity, and that as such getting the infection is desirable, to get it out of the way. This is understandable.  They have not been given the full accurate picture. 

Support - in economic terms - to take on the task of stopping the spread in the UK is minimal, and conditional and not well organised, as it was offered in an off the cuff move. This makes it less likely that working folk in the UK will readily consider what it might take to stop the spread - if your livelihood is under threat that is a reasonable feeling to have. They solution is to provide adequate and timely support. That is the job of the State in this kind of situation.

Austerity.

In the UK there is a further complication, that being cuts to public services  and the decades long policy of restricting support to disabled and chronically ill people who require state benefit support, as pursued under the policy banner of Austerity.

That the general population has been unwilling  or disinterested in confronting this over the past ten or twenty years or so in any meaningful manner is largely a matter of how media refuses to cover the dynamic honestly, how ineffective Parliament has been as a body with oversight that reins in harmful policies, and how the media and right wing politicians have been pursuing narratives that undermine empathy for people who need and deserve support - the attack on the welfare state as a thing that undermines the economy.

The UN report into the mistreatment of low income, unemployed, chronically ill and disabled people in the UK, by Government policy, was barely noticed by the population, and almost totally ignored by the largely right wing media, and robustly denied by Government, without any firm rebuttal - because there was and is no defence of those policies given the harm they have caused.

With regards to SARSCOV2 and COVID19 the Government attitude and it's stance is clearly focused on the economy, rather than on the welfare of the whole population, fit and vulnerable alike. The poverty of 14 million people in the UK is real. The feeling of deprivation amidst a growing population of billionaires whose wealth gains are in inverse proportion to the wealth losses from the low income groups is real.

Ironically, many of the fit and healthy feel as if they are being oppressed by the situation of the shut down. That said most people are adhering to the social distancing measures, and are diligent in their compliance and that is a really wonderful phenomenon - I know that most people are decent people, caring people. That decency is not reflected in the corridors of power, as the PPE scandal and others reveals.

And there is a large degree of confusion and resentment across the divided UK electorate  which is largely a consequence of Brexit and the deliberate bipolar adversarial dynamic deployed by it's proponents. So we can see that there's a lot going on here.

Protect the Economy, allow slow spread of the infection.

The confusion of political and economic and ideological perspectives in News media and across social media that filter perceptions of the nature of the threat and we have a perfect storm that creates confusion when what is need is clarity so that the population as a whole understands what is happening and what needs to be done.

Stop The Spread is the only viable policy facing this infectious disease.

Slow the Spread renders the whole population vulnerable. Loss of income is a serious leverage in deflecting attention from the realities of the Governments chosen stance. But we must transcend that and integrate it to resolve this situation.

What we are looking at is a factor that will determine the lethality of this viral infection will be socio-economic - low income population are much more at risk in any situation where an epidemic occurs.

This is born out by the most recent statistics produced by the Office of National Statistics.

Socio-Economic Status

Low income is a factor, as much as health and fitness, or lack of it in outcomes during an epidemic.

Universal Basic Income for the duration of a stop the spread policy duration could resolve that issue, and it would put cash flow into the local economies. 

Global international general trade must take second place for the duration. Internationally, resources movement must take precedence over personal travel so that areas that are less developed are more effectively supported in stop the spread policy implementation. We need every state to follow the stop the spread protocols. We have to help each other through this.

Tourism and Air travel are luxuries that must wait. Both were major vectors of the global spread of the infection. Nobody is talking of blaming either of these, and nobody should. That said, caution must be the stance, a until we are in control of the pandemic.

The dynamics of power as a factor in the exploitation of the situation.

Bullies will always, always seek to exploit any emerging vulnerability in a family, village, town, organisation, institute or population where they hold degrees of power over others. This is a behavioural dynamic, almost an un-thought about reaction other than they will think about how to maximise the opportunity - they will not have to think about choosing to exploit the vulnerability, that will feel natural, second nature to the bully.

Trump, Johnson et al are clearly part of a bullying dynamic, as are their hard core supporters. Their behaviour reveals this. The hatred poured out at those who are their political opponents, the bile and the misleading narratives with which they project and scapegoat others is well documented.

I think that British Government and their sponsors have made a  huge strategic error in allowing and endorsing a slow spread in order to protect the economy. That choice means that the hit to the economy will be much, much worse than if they had chosen the stop the spread policy, because it will mean extended periods of economic disruption as successive waves of opening up and closing down inevitably flow from the slow spread policy towards the fiction of 'herd immunity'.

The hubris and the arrogance of that decision stops them from admitting it, and now they are just bluffing through, which is why the media denial is so intense.

There is still time to stop the spread, but it means we must remove those in Government who refuse to take on that policy, because they have ideological and economic attachments to the slow spread policy and they cannot be trusted to carry through a stop the spread policy. Because they have already caused so much avoidable harm, they must be prevented from causing any more. They must be held accountable, and they must prevented from causing any more harm. The prevention of more harm has to be the primary concern right now.

We must address the issue of acknowledging that the often unspoken origin of distress, disease and ill health across entire populations lies in how power is mediated,  and where that observation is avoided, ignored, muted and suppressed - we must confront the deliberate gaslighting focus on what is 'wrong' within the individual, that avoids addressing what is harmful about the culture itself.

That is a serious problem - the resolution of which must come from a widespread, accurate and wholly evidenced understanding of the situation and fuller engagement across the population based on that understanding. Honesty and transparency matter profoundly. Spin causes harm. Lies are wholly unacceptable.






Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

New Zealand demonstrates the logic and success of 'Stop The Spread' protocols. The UK must do likewise, now.

New Zealand demonstrates the efficacy of Stop The Spread protocols. 

The UK must do likewise, now.

Any delay is totally unacceptable criminal behaviour.

#StopTheSpread

Jacinda and The Little Bugs




New Zealand announces today that transmission of  SARSCOV2 virus from human to human within New Zealand has been stopped,  and that they are on the road to eliminating the virus from the population.

There are still active cases. so the virus is still active in those people - there are no new cases of infection. They are well aware that more cases might emerge. They are being cautious and maintaining vigilance.






https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/new-zealand-prepares-to-lift-strict-lockdown-after-eliminating-coronavirus

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said the country has stopped the “widespread, undetected community transmission” of Covid-19, as tough lockdown restrictions are scheduled to ease on Monday night.

Ardern said New Zealand had “avoided the worst” in the pandemic, but must continue to fight the virus.

“There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way,” she said.

At 11.59pm on Monday, New Zealand will lift its level-4 lockdown which has been in place for more than four weeks. During that time, almost all businesses have been closed, along with schools while the population has been asked to remain in their homes for all but supermarket visits and short walks.
Ardern said there was no way of knowing what may have happened without the level-4 lockdown.

But she warned that in level-3 there were new risks – namely people coming into more contact with others."

This proves that STOPPING THE SPREAD is the only viable, grounded protocol for dealing with infectious diseases where no known vaccine or medical intervention exists.

If we examine the case of Vietnam, a populous state with a GDP per capita of  US$2600 , we can see that the issue is not limited by relative wealth, size or population.

New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan and China reveal that stopping the spread protocols cut across all dynamics of political and economic approaches.

I have written about this previously.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2020/04/eradication-argument-for-eradication.html

Looking into the future, New Zealand will need to maintain a vigilant infectious disease control monitoring and responding capability as a standard part of their Health System.

New Zealand will need to maintain 2 week Quarantine of all incoming passengers, which the non-New Zealand travelers must fund. Returning New Zealanders will be funded by the State. Immigrants must fund their own quarantine,

All quarantines must be tightly and transparently monitored.

These are the minimums to keep New Zealand safe.

In time these principles will apply to all States.

It is NEVER TOO LATE to implement a stop the spread protocol.

It is not a question of population size, or wealth.

Vietnam demonstrates that this is the case.

The Protocol for Stopping the Spread.

It is a question of providing accurate, precise information to all citizens, and to provide support in taking the correct action, as a collective working together to protect each other.

It is a matter of taking every case that presents, and tracing every contact of that person dating back the known incubation period, and checking with those people for past symptoms, current presenting symptoms and no symptoms.

It is a matter of assiduously continuing that process, case by case, group by group, village by village, neighbourhood by neighbourhood until all cases are tracked. Until the health system knows where every case of infection has been, and is emerging - do this until no new cases emerge.

Those presenting with symptoms must be given treatment in what we can call fever hospitals.

This is designed to isolate them from general population, so that they no longer act as spreaders of the infection. It is as designed to provide treatment that reduces escalation of their symptoms into severe or critical, to reduce the total number who end up needing intensive care.

This also protects pre-existing hospital systems, which can be maintained for general day to day practice apart from elective treatment, which can always wait.

There may be need to expand ICU capability and to construct extra isolate units away from main hospital services.

Those with no symptoms must be quarantined for the duration of incubation to first presenting symptoms.

As soon as they present symptoms, the are moved to treatment.

Then the matter of testing is about checking across the population of any given area to seek where the infection has been, where it is, and where it has not yet arrived...

These are all fundamentally simple protocols.

Their operation is complex, requiring resources and logistical support and human labour that is well orchestrated, from Government , Health Systems and Media, through to the individual citizen, working together:this does not have to be complicated.

What complicates matters are decisions based on ideological, political or economic agenda over-ruling  Health and Welfare considerations.

That cannot be allowed to happen, anywhere, anytime..

In the UK that means we must examine and hold to account all such political and ideological decision making that has caused harm to citizens welfare, and leave no stone un-turned, no policy unchecked, no error un-corrected.


As a little gift, here is a song I pushed through, rough mixed from a single live take on a loopstation at home, under lock down...


both are free to download.


Jacinda and The Little Bugs




Let us stop the spread of infection, together, as one human family.

Start today. Start now!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Johnson: "Protect the Hoard, let the Herd take it on the Chin." The consistent policy under all the confusion.


Boris Johnson, on February 3rd 2020, in a speech about Brexit to an audience in Greenwich, laid out the UK response to the SARSCOV2 pandemic in no uncertain terms.

Bear in that that the UK Government and Health officials had already received detailed warnings from WHO and other bodies of the COVID19 epidemic in China, and the ongoing pandemic across South East Asia, which was by this date already emerging within the UK.

The first cases of COVID19 in the UK were from a Chinese couple who had just  returned from China, who fell ill in Newcastle; their status as COVID19 was announced January 30th, they had been ill a week already.. Other cases were soon to follow, and it was know that cases were emerging across Europe. Point being that by February 1st, a global pandemic situation was known to be emerging, all Governments were alerted.

This is the official transcript from Johnson's speech on February 3rd.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020

"And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.

And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.

We are ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once and we are limbering up to use nerves and muscles and instincts that this country has not had to use for half a century."

Protect the hoard, let the herd take it on the chin.

Here is the video of that speech.




https://youtu.be/baWbWpOtJnc?t=536 - this link starts from Johnson's mention of Corona Virus.

Here is a more detailed report from Byline Times.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/17/the-coronavirus-crisis-boris-johnson-said-superman-brexit-britain-would-take-advantage-of-the-pandemic-and-go-its-own-way-seven-weeks-before-lockdown/

Byline times have another excellent piece outlining the link between UK Military Intelligence, The Behavioural Insights Team led by David Halpern and the 'behavioural sciences' quoted by the CMO Chris Whitty and the Government Science Adviser Sir Patrick Valence.

I have already outlined in some the dynamics of  'protect the hoard, let the herd take it on the chin' in some detail, based on my observations and the evidence available prior to the discovery of this piece, which came to me via www.joe.ie   on facebook on Saturday 17th of April.

In the early party of Johnson's speech he refers to the painting on the ceiling of the Greenwich Hall, and this chimes with my observations of the linkage between this situation, and that of the Late Victorian Holocausts in Ireland and India, the continuation of the attitude and the behaviour - the actions, outcomes and rationalisations - of British Empire Logic.

"It is great to welcome everyone here to Greenwich and I invite you first to raise your eyes to the heavens


The Vatican has Michelangelo.

Greenwich has Thornhill who spent 20 years flat on his back on top of the scaffolding, so rigid that his arm became permanently wonky, and he’s left us this gorgeous and slightly bonkers symbolic scene that captures the spirit of the United Kingdom in the early 18th century.

This painting above you was started in 1707, the very year when the union with Scotland was agreed – and does it not speak of supreme national self-confidence?

Look at these well-fed nymphs and cupids and what have you.

They are not just celebrating the Triumph of Liberty and Peace over Tyranny – the official title of the scene.

This is the settlement of a long and divisive political question about who gets to sit on the throne of England.

And it is visibly resolved as you can see in favour of William and Mary and the result is stability and certainty and optimism and an explosion of global trade propelled by new maritime technology."
There you have it.

This is a very serious situation.

We need  the UK policy to move from slowing the spread to stopping the spread. This will call on all citizens to understand the situation as it really is, and to engage in what it will take to stop the spread of the infection, and in due course eradicate it from the UK population.

The slow spread policy is pretty much guaranteed to lead to waves of infection outbreaks, which in time could well lead to +100,000 deaths, possibly +250,000 - horrific deaths of people with chronic illnesses, trauma, disability etc, whose immune systems are compromised, including also those living in close confines such as care homes, prisons, temporary accommodation on council housing waiting lists, the homeless and many others  - in the UK that demographic is close to 5,000.000 people.

1% would be 50,000 deaths and we are already heading for that number, with deaths close to 25,000 as of 19th April.

We NEED to stop all incoming air. land and sea travel or impose a two week quarantine of all incoming passengers, at hotels near the airports, monitored by health workers and police.

We need to fully equip NHS and carer staff with PPE and other essential tools to protect themselves.

We need to institute contact tracing, quarantine, treatment in isolation (not at home) where interventions can prevent escalation of cases into critical more readily.

We need to start the full protocols for stopping the spread, for protecting NHS and other vulnerable demographics. That means workers must be supported for the duration, by a temporary Universal Basic Income rather than Universal credit, to bear the burden, and that money will flow back into the local economy.

We cannot allow another day of "protect the Hoard, let the herd take it on the chin" as the official policy of the UK and it's peoples.

We might well need Parliament to reconvene to remove the PM, the entire Cabinet and Cummings, and the BIT team led by David Halpern, and I would suggest go as far as arresting them for gross malfeasance in public office, (their policy decision and actions, their rationalisations of what they have been doing goes way beyond incompetence) to be held on remand until we have stopped the spread of the viral infection, and eradicated it from the UK population. They are already  obfuscating and getting in the way, and cannot be trusted to do what needs to be done.

We can address their culpability in detail when our vulnerable population are safe.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

The argument for Stopping the Spread of Infection, as opposed to Slowing it down.


#StopTheSpread #SpreadTheLove

The lock down, keep your distance, no large crowds, stay at home, isolate the elderly and the vulnerable for 12 weeks and wash your hands approach is best described as the top down approach.  Government Advice.

It is imposed or suggested from above.

It is an umbrella policy. 

It is a very broad brush.

It has no detail.

It is partly an order,  and partly an advice, issued by the UK Government.

The policy is to slow the spread of the infection.

As things stand there is no policy in place to stop the spread of the infection.

Two entirely different policy choices, with profoundly different outcomes.

The UK Government's claim is that this slowing of the spread is necessary in order to prevent a potential overwhelm of the NHS as it stands.

Their claim is that by isolating the elderly and those in care settings we can allow the infection to spread among the general population of 'fit' people and thus protect the vulnerable and the NHS.

Sounds good.

What does slow the spread of infection really mean?

It means to allow the spread of the infection, albeit more slowly.

How is that possible?

When we all  carry on as normal, what do we need to do to make the infection spread more slowly than if we deliberately exposed ourselves to the viral infection by continuing with our everyday interactions.

Masks, physical distance, hand hygiene, limits on indoors gatherings, work from home is what is on offer.

What is not available is the resource base for rapid suppression of localised surges and outbreaks - expert effective local contact tracing,  economic support for quarantine, economic and medical support for isolation treatment, local real time data and information so that locally people can see where outbreaks are happening and take action to reduce contact or exposure to infection and then stop the spread of the infection.

What is on offer guarantees that the infection WILL spread, just slowly.

That is what slow spread means. There is a problem - slow spread cannot be controlled, it will always lead to exponential growth at some stage.

The Government ignored calls by responsible health professionals an epidemiologists to properly resource the NHS and the 15,570 care homes across the UK with PPE.

The UK Government ignored calls to make other provisions in advance, calls that were made from early January when the genome of the new virus was sequenced, and the virus given it's name (SARSCOV2). The disease was named COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019).

Because of that failure to respond to rational warnings,  the NHS frontline staff have been placed in harms way,  they are forced to deal with a multitude of cases of infection without the appropriate protection kit, and other essential supplies amidst staff and bed shortages, and they are suffering the impact of the governments choice, and we can see clearly now that the claim that they are protecting the NHS was and is obviously false.

They knew it was false the day they announced the policy to slow the spread of the infection.

Slowing the spread means infections have already hit care homes, and the entire population within care homes, carers and the cared for alike, are now at serious risk because they do not have the PPE kit and other situational practices to prevent infection spread.

Therefore the claim to be protecting the elderly and the people in care homes was a non-starter, it is demonstrably not the case.

What does slowing the infection spread mean for the 5,000,000 people in the UK with known  chronic compromised immune system conditions?

It means they are guaranteed to be imprisoned, in isolation or in shielding, for as long as the spread is allowed to progress, however slowly.  It means masses of early, painful, horrific deaths within that cohort -  a conservative estimate would be 1% of that population would be 50,000 deaths.

Slowly, over a period of a many months, or more up to a tear - what does that mean?

How many deaths a month is acceptable?

Why not adopt a stop the spread policy?

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-eight-week-suppression-strategy-could-stop-covid-19-in-its-tracks-says-ex-who-director/

"We know we can get this under control,” says Dr Anthony Costello, a former Director at the World Health Organisation (WHO), where he headed up maternal, child and adolescent health. “The problem is that Europe has been too slow to act compared with Asia; and America is now facing a huge crisis.”

Costello, who is Professor of Global Health at University College London where he previously headed up the UCL Institute for Global Health, spoke to me via telephone from Yorkshire, where he is currently isolating from his family members, many of whom are experiencing symptoms of the novel Coronavirus.

Having worked at the WHO from 2015 to 2018 before returning to UCL, Costello pulls no punches about the failures that, he says, have allowed the virus to rampage across Western countries.

He is also concerned about tepid Government messaging. “It’s not enough to just have modellers, virologists and behavioural scientists.

You need people who can translate this into action. Social scientists. Public health experts experienced in community mobilisation.

Right now, we are locked into this strange idea that the Prime Minister or President makes a speech and suddenly the entire country changes its mind. That’s just a fantasy.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen that just giving people a few of the right messages won’t necessarily change behaviour. We need a more serious, decentralised approach and to share data with local communities.”


He refers to some of China’s mass communications measures.

“The Chinese managed to suppress the virus in provinces outside Wuhan without the same sort of total lockdown by operating quickly.

They had a TV station giving out information on the virus round-the-clock on a 24-hour basis.

We had policing of supermarkets and pharmacies.

But most importantly we had a comprehensive mass testing and contact tracing programme. And proper protection for frontline health workers. And that’s how this was brought under control within seven weeks.”


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636331/ - a paper outlining how the SARS epidemic was stopped in it's tracks.

Which is to say take the proven steps to eradicate the virus from within the population in any given area, from a village to towns, to cities and entire territories.

Because we have no vaccine we have no time to waste.

There is no lee-way, no room for any margin of error. Every error will cost lives, will cause avoidable horrible deaths.

So here is the protocol to stop the spread of infection.

A) Officially declare a legal shut down, and pay all non-essential workers to stay at home, by providing a Universal Basic Income for the duration of 3 months itwho  would take to stop the spread, and eradicate the virus from the population.

To make this easier to bear, if UBI is not acceptable then consider a pause rents, mortgages, major bill payments and roll out temporary income support for the duration of the program to stop the spread of the infection.

That money will not be wasted, it will  be going back into the local economy.

Support all essential workers - food production, distribution and retail, public transport, utility, health, police, fire brigades, NHS, military and civil service by ensuring they have full PPE and training adequate to their roles, and provide them and their employers with exact and accurate information on the virus, the infection, the disease and the protocols demanded by the situation.

Clear communications that  treat the citizens as rational adults.

B) Roll out fully resourced contact tracing - Trace all the contacts of every case that presents, and meet each and everyone  of those contacts with a team who can gently and firmly assess and test every one of those contacts to see if they

1) have the virus - send for treatment in isolation wards to avoid treatment at home which leads to more spread

2) have the antibody - have survived the infection, are presumed immune

3) have not yet been infected - people who could become infected - they must be protected from contracting the infection and also quarantined for two weeks to see if symptoms emerge.

Use school buildings that are empty as co-ordination centers locally. Distribute testing and organise local contact tracing through these as well.

C) Treat symptomatic people from the contact list and all who present with symptoms in isolation hospitals, rather than leaving them at home, where they can spread the infection, and where the patients condition can escalate without support to deal with that.

(This was observed in Wuhan before the contact tracing and new build isolation hospitals kicked in - in the end they had 1800 teams of 5 people each meeting all the contacts, contact tracing is resource heavy in that it needs lots of people working at it, nonetheless it works really well, and then mobile phone tech was integrated into that to monitor symptoms and spread. Potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs which puts more cash back into the local economy and build community cohesion at the same time.)

D) Quarantine all asymptomatic contacts, and as soon as they show symptoms, move them to treatment hospitals to prevent or reduce escalation to severe or critical  - this also means less pressure on the available intensive care units and general hospital admissions.

E) Everyone who is quarantined is supported financially and monitored for signs of symptoms so that earliest treatment can be given, to reduce escalation of symptoms into severe or critical.

If the Government had taken this route, back in February, or even in Early March, a method which is proven already in 5 largely urbanised states, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea and is being deployed successfully in others as I write, we would be closer to stopping the spread and then eradicating the infection spread within the UK population.

We know that it would take 8-12 weeks to stop the spread across a large populous state.

Those states that have applied this protocol are experiencing imported cases, that is to say the infection is being carried in by travellers from outside those States are bringing the virus back into those virus free territories.

F) Quarantine all incoming travellers, via Air, Land or Sea, for two weeks, and monitor them strictly.

If the Government were to move immediately to stopping the spread with an eye to eradication, we could clear the infection within three months.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-eight-week-suppression-strategy-could-stop-covid-19-in-its-tracks-says-ex-who-director/

We have the resources, we have the people, we have the desire - but do the Government share this vision?

The aim is to find all infection routes and to chase them down to where everyone infected is known and observed, and no new infections are starting - when the virus runs out of new hosts, it vanishes in that population. Quarantine must be fully implemented upon all incoming  and returning domestic and international air, sea and land travel. Even from Northern Ireland.

We need both the shut down and the bottom out approach.

Instead the UK Government policy is encouraging the slow spread of infection, and pretty much guaranteeing importing extra new infections by way of air, sea and land travellers arriving from other countries where there are serious infection outbreaks, because, as of today, 17 April 2020 is no testing or quarantining of those arrivals.

This is insane.

Let me repeat - within the UK we could, given the fullest resourcing, eradicate the virus in 3 months.

Then a fully funded quarantine must be in place for all incoming or returning travellers to maintain that eradicated status, until a vaccine is available or we have implemented the stop and eradicate policy across the Earths states and communities...

Allowing the slow spread will play out over many,  many more months, possibly years...

In economic terms the difference is between losing three months of GDP or losing a years GDP plus the other costs as various systems reach collapse or stress beyond repair due to continued shut down, re-opening and further waves of infection outbreaks generating a cyclic pattern that persists because there is no vaccine.

It's not just about me, or you my dear reader, it is about all of us.

This situation is about all of humanity as one human family, one society of many cultures and languages, it is about unity across diversity.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.