An ex-WHO official has said that Coronavirus will “burn out” in the UK due to social distancing.
There is still a lot of uncertainty regarding the virus.
Previous estimates indicated that 2.6 people would be infected from one host, but after social distancing measures were imposed, that number seems to have dropped to around 0.62. Keeping the number under 1 is crucial for eradicating the virus, and is especially challenging with a disease as contagious as this.
“This means the virus is cornered,” said Professor Karol Sikora.
“It has nowhere to go and will burn out. Good news.”
Sikora has also said he believes that the “main wave” of high death rates would be over by the end of the month, and explained how it’s particularly difficult to decide when to relax social distancing measures.
“The real question is ‘how do you relax social distancing at that point?’, and there’s no science behind that, it’s just a judgement call and it’s a difficult judgement call,” he said.
“Testing, for those who have been infected and therefore to know what percentage of the population in the UK are infected with the virus is sort of critical now, because that would guide the relaxation of social distancing and help business to get started again.”
He also pointed out from cruise ship testing data, that up to 50% of people who contract the virus show no symptoms at all, whilst still spreading it.
“Somehow, if we could test the population and find out who exactly has gone through the process of coronavirus, then you can release them into the population.
“If it’s 40% or 50% – and the epedemiologists argue about that already – it may be possible to liberate social distancing first/second week in May.
“We’d all be delighted if that is the case. At the same time, if it’s not the case and, say, only 10% of the population have been infected, we may have to wait until September, and that would create huge social problems for this country and other countries.”
