31, March 2020
Social distancing for ‘six months or more’ may be needed to avoid second wave of coronavirus 0
After England’s deputy chief medical officer warned on Sunday that the UK’s coronavirus lockdown could last for “six months or more”, experts say that prolonged social distancing measures – if not full-blown confinements – may well be necessary and that some permanent changes to behaviour are likely.
As the UK braced for its second week under lockdown following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s March 23 announcement of unprecedented curbs on peacetime public life, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries set out a medium-term timeline for how the British government might renew restrictions aimed at supressing the coronavirus.
Containment measures must stay in place at the end of the original three-week lockdown period, she said at the British government’s daily coronavirus briefing on March 29: “We must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living; that would be quite dangerous. If we stop, then all of our efforts will be wasted and we could potentially see a second peak.”
“So I think three weeks for review,” Harries continued. “Two or three months to see whether we’ve really squashed it, with about three to six months ideally, and lots of uncertainty in that, but then to see at which point we can actually get back to normal. It is plausible that it could go further than that.”
Two years of restrictions?
Britain is not the only country whose government has warned that coronavirus containment measures will be extended beyond their initial period. Europe’s worst-affected country and the first on the continent to impose a lockdown, Italy has said that its confinement measures could be extended to July 31 despite their crippling economic effects.
Germany’s disease control and prevention agency, the Robert Koch Institute, declared earlier in March that – in an “extreme situation” – restrictions on public life to combat the coronavirus could stay in place for as long as two years until a vaccine is ready for use.
“Some kind of distancing will likely be necessary for at least six months,” William Hanage, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, told FRANCE 24. “The distancing measures already in place are stopping the establishment of new cases. Those already infected should be resolved for better or worse in two months, after which the goal will be to prevent the surge we have seen in the first wave happening again.”
The German health institute’s idea that two years of restrictions could be necessary to deal with the coronavirus presents a “fairly likely” scenario, Hanage said, adding that it “depends on what is meant by restrictions; two years of the current state is unlikely, but two years without large gatherings is another thing”.
Of course, completely stopping the transition of the disease would make lockdowns and social distancing unnecessary. This could be achieved one of three ways, explained Greg Gray, a professor and medical epidemiologist at Duke University School of Medicine, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
First, “through a massive, worldwide, safe and effective vaccine programme”. Second, through the “massive employment of some other effective prophylaxis against transmission”, such as effective lockdowns, “combined with intense contact tracing to stop transmission networks”. Or third, “when a large proportion of the human population becomes immune due to infection (known as herd immunity) and the epidemic burns out”. Until then, he said, “the virus will likely continue to circulate wherever it finds new susceptible people to infect”.
Only the second option – lockdowns and tracing transmission networks – appears to be feasible in the short term.
Paradoxically, lifting restrictive measures earlier may be most suitable in relatively hard-hit nations, Gray said.
“As the virus has hit the UK and Italy very hard, these countries may see [herd immunity] sooner than most other countries.”
As a result, “six months (of restricted movement) may be reasonable for the UK” while “two years may be reasonable for Germany if transmission remains low”.
Coronavirus will ‘change our way of life’
By minimising the number of people who contract the coronavirus, lockdowns protect the most vulnerable. However, they do not make people immune. Consequently, scientists expect the virus to resurge when restrictions are lifted. For example, the Imperial College London study – famous for having persuaded Johnson and US President Donald Trump to adopt tougher approaches against the coronavirus – predicted that if confinement measures end after five months, a second wave of infections would emerge in late autumn.
In light of that, “most epidemiologists believe that once the social distancing is relaxed, it needs to be accompanied by widespread testing and isolation of infected persons for 14 days”, Charles Horsburgh, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University, told FRANCE 24.
While governments will need to deploy mass testing and contact tracing, experts say that people will also need to modify their behaviour to prevent fresh outbreaks.
“This virus has and will continue to change our way of life, our traditions and our human-to-human interactions,” Gray said.
Some changes are already palpable. Face masks, already common in Asia, can now also be seen in Western cities; and in France, the traditional bise – a kiss on each cheek to greet family, friends and colleagues – has become taboo.
Permanent change is on the cards, Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, told FRANCE 24. “It could well be that there are fewer people shaking hands and kissing; elbow bumps could become the norm as a form of greeting and I think face masks might become more normal too.”
Source: France 24
31, March 2020
Lagos in lockdown as Africa virus closures spread 0
Africa’s largest city Lagos was deserted Tuesday after Nigeria locked down its economic hub and shuttered its capital, in the continent’s latest effort to brake the juggernaut of coronavirus.
Businesses were closed, markets abandoned and streets empty as the usually chaotic megacity of 20 million, along with the capital Abuja, shuddered to a halt on the first full day of a two-week shutdown.
Police in protective equipment manned checkpoints, trucks carrying non-essential items were turned back and youths were spotted playing football on a usually traffic-clogged highway.
“It is like putting people in prison,” minibus taxi driver Mutiu Adisa told AFP.
“I don’t know how people can survive for two weeks without working to make money.”
Nigeria embarked late Monday on one of Africa’s most ambitious efforts at social distancing after recording 135 confirmed cases and two deaths.
Enforcing the stay-at-home order in the overcrowded slums of Lagos will be a mammoth challenge as millions of poor depend on their daily earnings to survive.
Officials insist the draconian measures are needed urgently to ward off an explosion in infections that could easily overwhelm the weak health system in Africa’s most populous nation.
“To reduce the number of people with coronavirus, we know they need to stop movement,” 60-year-old engineer Ogun Nubi Victor told AFP.
“But there in no money for the citizens, people are just sitting at home, with nothing to eat.”
In an attempt to ease the pain, Lagos state authorities have pledged to supply basic food rations to some 200,000 of the city’s neediest households.
– Lockdowns and brutality –
Across all of Africa, countries have recorded more than 5,300 cases and 170 deaths, according to a tally compiled by AFP.
Tanzania on Tuesday became the latest nation to record its first fatality from the novel coronavirus.
The numbers have lagged behind those of other continents, and as of Monday, there were still six countries out of 54 in Africa — South Sudan, Burundi, Sao Tome and Principe, Malawi, Lesotho and the Comoros — that had yet to detect a single case.
But experts have repeatedly warned of Africa’s vulnerability, describing its many conflicts, poor sanitation, packed urban slums and under-equipped hospitals as sources of potential catastrophe.
Dozens of countries across the continent have imposed restrictions from night-time curfews to total shutdowns to try to halt the disease.
Uganda on Tuesday was also waking up to lockdown after President Yoweri Museveni ordered his east African nation to shut up shop immediately.
The Republic of Congo was gearing up to follow suit later in the day and Botswana’s president ordered a state of emergency from midnight on Thursday.
But growing reports of brutality from security forces in some nations have highlighted the challenges of enforcing the draconian measures.
The police watchdog in South Africa, on lockdown since last week, said Monday it was investigating an officer for allegedly killing a man who defied the regulations.
The country’s defence minister also condemned “any type of abuse” by security forces after videos on social media showed civilians forced to squat or roll on the ground.
The regional powerhouse, which has the highest numbers of confirmed infections on the continent, will start mass door-to-door screening and testing for infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday.
The “unprecedented” exercise will be launched in the next few days, with at least 10,000 field workers deployed across the country of 57 million people, he said in an address to the nation.
“We are now entering a new phase in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic,” Ramaphosa said.
Source: AFP