RE: Coronavirus - is enough being done to contain it?
The big problem with relaxing and opening up is testing.
You can't just tell everyone to go back to normal and not expect a second wave, this thing isn't going away anytime soon, it won't go away until we get an effective vaccine. So far, our testing has been absolutely woeful and inadequate. Even now, with testing for key staff being ramped up, the whole process is so hit and miss that there are currently more tests available than people coming forward to be tested, it's a pathetic situation.
The countries that have nailed testing like South Korea and Taiwan (countries close to China so more susceptible early on, but with previous experience of diseases like this with Sars and Mers) and Germany, have managed to largely contain the spread, and have far fewer deaths and infections than us. So wide scale testing needs to be ramped up for all before relaxing the lockdown is a realistic possibility without incurring a second wave.
Even the NHS app being developed requires testing to be effective. It's meant to alert you if you come into close contact with someone infected, but it will only really be effective if people have ready access to tests to know they are infected as early as possible, by the time they show symptoms to self-diagnose or be admitted to hospital, they could have already infected a bunch of people who will have infected a bunch more, and the app becomes of little use.
Alongside testing you need the ability to trace contacts of those infected to test them and isolate those also infected before they can pass it on to even more. Our capacity for contact tracing is even worse than our efforts at testing. It seems like the NHS app is a cheap shortcut for this, basically getting the public to contact trace themselves rather than do it properly and effectively. Any such shortcut method would of course be entirely reliant on people firstly installing the app, and secondly acting on it. How many will install it, get an alert "you need to self-isolate", and think screw that I need to go to work, or go to the gym, or do my shopping , or head down the pub or whatever. Look at the numpties who have ignored lockdown rules and social distancing so far.
A relaxation and some sort of return to normality is obviously something we all want, but doing it without more tragedy is going to require this government to make appropriate investment in the right areas, which it has so far been unable to do, and show a level of competence it has so far failed to show.
My confidence at this point remains low.
"I'm a featherless bird ... in a sky so absurd"
Sophia - Becky - Mica - Camilla - Ella
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