Letters / Let’s hope the scientists are correct
Whilst many other countries have instigated draconian measures in an attempt to stop the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), the British government has taken a different path.
So is the idea of allowing the virus to basically infect much of the population by so called ‘herding’ a logical and sensible method in a pandemic?
It is estimated up to 80 per cent of the UK population will contract COVID-19 over the next few months despite instigating draconian methods such as closing schools, cancelling events with large crowds, closing borders, banning flights, voluntary isolation, etc.
Regardless of such measures, the pandemic will likely continue for many more months and will only peak when X number of people within the UK population have actually contracted the disease and are then unable to spread the virus any longer.
Even if we literally isolated and eventually tested the whole UK population and closed our borders for months, internal viral spread would still occur no matter what steps we took.
And once the nation comes out of a hibernated ‘quarantine’ and we start to go about our business again and people continue flying into the country, the people who escaped the virus would again be exposed to COVID-19.
Because it’s estimated over 95 per cent of the population will recover from the virus and become immune, the challenge is to try and protect the remaining vulnerable and elderly population and those who have indicative health issues that would most otherwise likely die.
This is key to the idea of allowing the virus to ‘herd’ within a population and therefore perhaps has merit and on the surface would appear logical.
Let’s hope the scientists and epidemiologists who are advising the government are correct.
Kerrie Meyer
Bigton
The foregoing is my own analysis based on an article in The Guardian on Friday.
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