Kim
I have seen, and looked through ‘The Hammer and the Dance’ by Pueyo. It is an excellent piece of work. In his graph he shows the dance bit which includes case identification and contact tracing. I think this should come earlier.
I don’t think the government has really abandoned their herd immunity theory just toned it down because it was rubbished almost immediately, and by none other than the Football clubs who voluntarily cancelled the matches, against HMGs wishes.
I think there should have been a wider use of curfew and quarantine earlier. Borders should have been shut except for essential travel, planes grounded, social isolation strictly applied and also wide testing including strict quarantine of all cases, mild and asymptomatic cases. This would have meant a huge organisational effort by the government to be able to provide widely early testing, have the capacity to provide quarantine facilities, and organise food and essentials delivery to those self isolating at home. This is what S Korea did early on, and China did after they had a major rise in cases and both were successful at containing the virus so far.
But the government has only started half hearted testing and still of selected groups. Letting people with mild disease stay at home with their families only means that their families will get infected. Letting people out to shop, only makes exposure to the virus on that trip more likely. I also disagree with the exercise bit, because it contains ambiguities and you need clarity of message. Not everyone understands that going out in the fresh air increases chances of infection, and not only by what you do but by what others do. In lanes and in parks, people went out en masse to celebrate the holidays.
The above measures would have required a level of organisation that would have required a major epidemic contingency plan to be enacted smoothly. Do we have one? Are we really prepared in this country for a major terrorist conventional or bio attack, let alone boasting of stopping a Russian hostile action which we periodically boast of.
The emperor has no clothes.
We have no contingency plans, or if we have, we don’t know where we filed it.