LONDON – The United Kingdom has been abused by the coronavirus.
The government’s response has been heavily criticized, the human and economic costs have been enormous and a “second wave” could be difficult.
Of the 20 countries most affected by COVID-19, the UK has the highest death toll per capita – more than 70 per 100,000 – according to Johns Hopkins University.
But a growing number of experts believe it does not have to be this way.
Scientists warn against the idea that the UK could follow in the footsteps of another island nation, New Zealand, and eliminate the transmission of the community in a few months.
New Zealand had gone 102 days without new infections before four new infections hit the city of Auckland on Wednesday. Prime Minister Jacinda Adern has urged people to stay home and stop the spread.
This ‘zero-COVID-19’ approach has already been adopted by the governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which are part of the United Kingdom but have national governments which set their own health policies.
And proponents of a zero-COVID-19 approach are now calling on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has criticized some political opponents and some health experts, for a vicious and inadequate response to the pandemic. in England.
“It’s like pissing in a swimming pool,” said Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh and an adviser to the Scottish Government.
“Just because someone peeps on one side does not mean that everyone will not get dirty,” she said, referring to the idea that a COVID-19 free country or region could still be vulnerable to importing infections from outside if it does not impose quarantines and other restrictions.
The current policy in England is to prioritize the possible recovery of society, while imposing local measures for confinement in areas where the virus is flaring up. The government compares this to the accelerator or brake pedal of a car, depending on the desired speed.
Critics worry that this reactive strategy, assuming the virus will circulate at a certain level, will lock up the nation in the vegetation, put businesses in an impossible bind if they are forced to reopen and close.
A zero-COVID-19 approach, on the other hand, would favor immediate caution in the hopes of a larger payout later. In theory, this would delay the transfer within the community and then use an aggressive testing regime to find and isolate all imported new cases.
It is not intended to simply “flatten the curve” – but to crush it.
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Closing measures would be slower than they have been in England. And there would be quarantines and restrictions for non-essential travel, not only at external borders, but also in the country, when domestic hot spots arise.
These may sound extreme, but such policies are already in place in New Zealand. Only citizens and residents are allowed access – everyone else is excluded for no good reason – and even then they have to pay $ 2,000 for the cost of their own 14-day isolation by government. In Australia, the border of the virus-hit state of Victoria is closed for nonessential travel.
However, New Zealand is much smaller than the United Kingdom in terms of its economy and population, so if England were to go down this route, it would have major implications for international trade and holidays.
Andrew Hayward, professor of epidemiology of infectious disease at University College London, told NBC News that New Zealand should be congratulated on its success.
Still, with less than 6 million people and a very low population density, that level of success would be much harder to achieve in the UK, with almost 70 million with a very higher population density, he said.
Supporters of the zero-COVID-19 approach say this is worth paying a price considering the potential rewards: making the British Isles an enclave of isolated but repayable normality.
“It’s about trade-offs and choices,” said Sridhar, who was born and raised in Miami. “I think the New Zealand leadership outlined those really well. They said: You can have your normal life back and go to these big rugby matches. But if you want to leave the country, it will not be easy to come back.”
Vicky Pryce, board member at the London-based CEBR consulting firm and a former UK government economic adviser, said the economic impact of isolating England as the UK would be “disaster” and might not even work.
“Many of these limitations [in New Zealand] are short term and if you did them here … there should be confidence that the rail and rail system is working. People probably trust the New Zealand model more than they would trust the system here.
“I do not think so [the British government] can pay to do another lockdown. “
Some of these zero-COVID-19 measures have already been put in place in Scotland, where there are an estimated 10-30 daily infections compared to some 4,200 in England.
“Our decisions continue to be informed by our clear strategic objective, which is to seek to eliminate COVID,” Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a speech last week.
Even their lawyers say true zero-COVID-19 is unlikely to happen as long as Scotland’s 96-mile border with England remains open and unchecked. That’s why Sturgeon and others find it frustrating that the UK is not using its natural island protection to make it better effective.
Zero-COVID-19 would be extremely difficult to adopt in a country like Germany, with its porous borders with nine other peoples, Sridhar said. And it is almost unthinkable as a realistic strategy for the United States, with its sprawling patchwork of state and federal bureaucracies.
Despite the challenges, many experts argue that it is realistic for a country to eradicate COVID-19.
“It is indeed possible to be COVID free,” said Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in England.
“When infected people are isolated so that they cannot transmit to another, the virus dies out when the primary case resolves. It does not attract anywhere to wait to jump out, it is gone.”
He said, however, that this is difficult because asymptomatic cases are not routinely detected, which maintains a low level of infection in the community.
“The key is widespread testing, so you pick up the mild cases, followed by rapid isolation until the infection has run its course,” he said.
