COVID-19 Epidemiology, Part 6
I last posted on COVID-19 epidemiology (from my perspective) on 15th April. We are a month on and my optimism is draining away. Since then the doubling time in Northamptonshire rose encouragingly to a peak of 79 days, but has since slumped to 30, where it is like the average for the UK. The daily increment of cases in the UK, over the last 18 days, has fluctuated between 6000 and 3200 but stubbornly will not fall below 3200.
I keep asking a question that I do not see others asking — "Who are the new cases?"; and nor do I see any information from the government that will help answer it. Are they "front-liners", brave people who stand up and serve the public, facing hundreds of potential cases each day with only a pair of rubber gloves or a visor for protection; nurses, bus-drivers, cashiers? Or are they repatriated Britons from overseas? Or are they risk-takers, who have approached strangers more closely than 2 metres? The answers MUST be known and ARE important.
We want to know if 2 meters is enough distancing for protection; and the effectiveness of gloves and visors. We want information on the length of time between catching a virus, and showing symptoms; and during what part of that we are infectious.
Hanging above all that is a more general question — we want to know if there is a prospect of relaxing our (self-imposed) distancing before the widespread availability of an effective vaccine in a year's time.
