Summary The toll of deaths and other consequences Deaths per day New cases per day UK "Global Death Comparison" chart UK nation and regional comparisons Poor UK Government decision making NHS/PHE labs are being denied testing reagents Unspecified case location in 70% of UK cases Problems with the covid-19 science Problems with the media and covid-19 Reasons to be concerned Reporting delays in Liverpool for covid-19 tests Action needed Elimination of the virus ("Zero covid") Elimination successes Population ("herd") immunity Countries with the best covid-19 control: half-lives of 5 days When to end the UK lockdown Predicting epidemics - Q and A R values, doubling times and halving times Data sources Data sources for covid-19.php Seven principles of public life in the UK Myths and misinformation About

A vaccine

A vaccine would help eliminate the virus but it is not essential (more here). There are several reasons for not depending on one becoming available [1]:

• we cannot be sure a vaccine can be developed e.g. there is no vaccine against HIV
• it may take years to develop - the fastest vaccine ever developed was for mumps; it took 4 years
• immunity may not be long-lasting.

Test, trace, isolate, support

This is seen by many as a key measure.
Scotland's strategy is online [2].

Masks

Masks in public places are advocated by many scientists working in the field. A summary has been written by Prof Trisha Greenhalgh and Jeremy Howard [3].
A petition to make the wearing of masks mandatory in public spaces is online at change.org [4].

Blanket testing

"An Italian academic has claimed striking evidence that most people infected with covid-19 show no symptoms but are still able to infect others, which he says has huge implications for testing policy, particularly in hospitals.

"Sergio Romagnani, a professor of clinical immunology at the University of Florence, has reported how blanket testing in a completely isolated village of roughly 3000 people in northern Italy saw the number of people with covid-19 symptoms fall by over 90% within 10 days."

See the British Medical Journal for the full article [5].

References

[1]	https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/22/why-we-might-not-get-a-coronavirus-vaccine

[2]	https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-test-trace-isolate-support/pages/6/

[3]	Masks for all? The science says yes. (2020) https://www.fast.ai/2020/04/13/masks-summary/

[4]	https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-make-face-masks-mandatory-in-indoor-public-spaces-in-the-uk-3aaa4a58-deaa-4d88-9e1a-b8456ecb6e89

[5]	https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1165

First published: 27 Mar 2020
Last updated: 2 Nov 2020

Summary The toll of deaths and other consequences Deaths per day New cases per day UK "Global Death Comparison" chart UK nation and regional comparisons Poor UK Government decision making NHS/PHE labs are being denied testing reagents Unspecified case location in 70% of UK cases Problems with the covid-19 science Problems with the media and covid-19 Reasons to be concerned Reporting delays in Liverpool for covid-19 tests Action needed Elimination of the virus ("Zero covid") Elimination successes Population ("herd") immunity Countries with the best covid-19 control: half-lives of 5 days When to end the UK lockdown Predicting epidemics - Q and A R values, doubling times and halving times Data sources Data sources for covid-19.php Seven principles of public life in the UK Myths and misinformation About