LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cautioned that more families will lose their loved ones to the coronavirus but has taken a distinctly different approach to tackling the outbreak.
Below is the scientific and public health argument behind the British approach.
WHERE IS THE UK?
The United Kingdom is about four weeks behind Italy and other European countries. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people are believed by scientists to be infected in the United Kingdom.
British cases of coronavirus rose 35% to 798 over the past 24 hours. A total of 32,771 people have been tested in the country, the health ministry said on Friday.
DELAY AND REDUCE THE PEAK
“What you want to do is protect people in the most infectious period,” said Patrick Vallance, the British government’s chief scientific adviser.
Britain wants to “delay the peak and to push the peak down”, he said, to prevent the National Health Service from being overwhelmed and to push the peak into the summer months when the health service is less burdened.
Scientific and medical experts say they are adopting a “staged” approach, not bringing in more stringent measures until the infection rate increases “significantly”, which may not happen until a “few weeks” from now.
They say the science of the virus is “broadly agreed” internationally but countries will take different measures to tackle the spread.
TIMING IS CRUCIAL
There is no point isolating the entire population at such an early stage as too few are infected, people get fed up with staying at home and a prolonged period of isolation could result in loneliness, the scientists say.
