WIRED: Can the UK avoid a deadly second wave of coronavirus?

Press/Media: Expert comment

Description

Thomas House, a reader in statistics at the University of Manchester who is modelling the current epidemic says that social distancing measures in the UK and elsewhere may have flattened infection curves but left many individuals at risk of infection. “The bad news seems to be that where people have tried to look in the community and other places there hasn't been a tremendously high level of acquisition of immunity. That means it doesn't look like we can come straight out of lockdown and back to normal,” he says.

In the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, the UK will have to keep subsequent waves as low as possible in order to reduce the burden on its healthcare services. “What we will see when the second wave comes is going early [into lockdown] doesn't protect you from that, because we still have a lot of susceptibility in the population,” says House.

One of the characteristics that makes the course of the coronavirus epidemic so difficult to predict is the incubation period, which is the time between the infection and when a person becomes infectious. It takes up to 14 days for an infected individual to show symptoms so they may unknowingly spread the virus to people around them. “You want to catch people during the latent period. When they’ve not had a chance to infect people yet,” says House.

Period23 Apr 2020

Media coverage

1

Media coverage

  • TitleCan the UK avoid a deadly second wave of coronavirus?
    Media name/outletWired
    Media typeWeb
    Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
    Date23/04/20
    DescriptionThomas House, a reader in statistics at the University of Manchester who is modelling the current epidemic says that social distancing measures in the UK and elsewhere may have flattened infection curves but left many individuals at risk of infection. “The bad news seems to be that where people have tried to look in the community and other places there hasn't been a tremendously high level of acquisition of immunity. That means it doesn't look like we can come straight out of lockdown and back to normal,” he says.

    In the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, the UK will have to keep subsequent waves as low as possible in order to reduce the burden on its healthcare services. “What we will see when the second wave comes is going early [into lockdown] doesn't protect you from that, because we still have a lot of susceptibility in the population,” says House.

    One of the characteristics that makes the course of the coronavirus epidemic so difficult to predict is the incubation period, which is the time between the infection and when a person becomes infectious. It takes up to 14 days for an infected individual to show symptoms so they may unknowingly spread the virus to people around them. “You want to catch people during the latent period. When they’ve not had a chance to infect people yet,” says House.
    URLhttps://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-uk-second-wave-lockdown
    PersonsThomas House

Keywords

  • coronavirus
  • COVID-19
  • statistics