A circuit-breaker was at the top of a shortlist of coronavirus interventions recommended to the Government by expert advisers last month, documents show.
A meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) also agreed that all university teaching should be online unless face-to-face teaching is “absolutely essential”.
The Sage document, dated September 21 and released just hours after the Prime Minister announced his three-tier system of alert levels for England, said a package of interventions will be needed to reverse the exponential rise in cases.
“Single interventions by themselves are unlikely to be able to bring R below one (high confidence),” the document said, before setting out a shortlist of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that should be considered for “immediate” introduction.
Top of the list is a circuit-breaker, a short period of lockdown, “to return incidence to low levels”, followed by advice to work from home for all those that can.
Third on the list was “banning all contact within the home with members of other households (except members of a support bubble)”, and fourth was the closure of all bars, restaurants, cafes, indoor gyms, and personal services such as hairdressers.
Attendees of the September 21 meeting, held via Zoom, included the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty.
The document says that both local and national measures are needed, adding: “Measures should not be applied in too specific a geographical area.”
A separate Sage document, also dated September 21, looking at the effectiveness and harms of non-pharmaceutical interventions, said a circuit-breaker reintroduced for two to three weeks should act to reduce R below one.
The ‘novel coronavirus’ is a disease that can cause respiratory problems and lead to pneumonia.
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, symptoms may include
- runny nose
- headache
- cough
- sore throat
- fever
- a general feeling of being unwell
- breathing problems
“Over a fortnight’s ‘break’, two weeks of growth could be exchanged for two weeks of decay in transmission, assuming good adherence to measures, and no additional increase in contacts before of after the break.
“If this were as strict and well-adhered to as the restrictions in late May, this could put the epidemic back by approximately 28 days or more.
“The amount of ‘time gained’ is highly dependent on how quickly the epidemic is growing – the faster the growth or stricter the measures introduced, the more time gained.
“If regulations and behaviour then returned to pre-circuit break levels, there would be a return to exponential growth, but from a significantly lower level than would have been the case without the break.
“The deleterious impact would be maximised if they coincided with school holidays.
“Multiple circuit-breaks might be necessary to maintain low levels of incidence,” the document said.
On Monday evening, Sage scientist Professor Calum Semple warned the new restrictions announced by the PM had come too late and a “circuit-breaker” could be needed within weeks.
-- to www.walesonline.co.uk
