US, UK shift coronavirus strategies after report by epidemiologists
US battles with coronavirus
The United States and the United Kingdom have shifted their coronavirus strategies after a recent report by the epidemiologists of the United Kingdom.
UK's chief scientific adviser confirmed that the Imperial College study was among those the UK government was looking at.
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"What suppression in that paper talks about is exactly what we are doing," he said.
US President Donald Trump unveiled a 15-day plan to slow new infections in the United States, including more stringent recommendations about staying home and avoiding groups of 10 people or more, among other steps.
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An author of the study, Imperial College Professor Neil Ferguson, said that the study was given to the White House Coronavirus Task Force over the weekend and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday.
The study predicts that attempts to slow or mitigate, rather than actively halt, or suppress, the novel coronavirus could overwhelm the number of intensive care hospital beds and lead to about 250,000 deaths in the UK and more than a million in the United States during the course of the current pandemic.
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For the study, researchers used a simulation model that was originally developed to support pandemic flu planning and modified it to examine the impact of certain scenarios for the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 Response Team of the Imperial College, London said that it is advising the UK government on its response strategy to combat the deadly virus.
Epidemiological studies are based on models from available data and rely on assumptions that can later prove false, and generate predictions that can appear alarming as they deal with the pandemic's entire term. This is one of many models.
While mitigation "focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping the pandemic spread," the study explains, suppression, "aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely."
Yet the study also notes that "optimal mitigation policies" might reduce peak health care demand in the UK by two-thirds and deaths by half.
These include combining the home isolation of suspected cases, home quarantine of those living with suspected cases and social distancing among the elderly and others at high risk of severe disease.
"For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option," the report concludes.