Covid-19 restrictions should be eased gradually, researchers recommend

“Decision makers — pay attention to the math: emerging from lockdowns requires a gradual and phased approach to keep infection under control,” said Michael Bonsall from the Mathematical Ecology Research group at the University of Oxford, who helped lead the study team.

“Without this attention, you run the risk of burdening health systems with further waves of infection,” Bonsall told CNN.

Thanks to lockdown measures, an estimated 60 million coronavirus infections were prevented in the United States, and 285 million in China, according to a separate study recently published in the journal Nature.

But lockdowns have huge emotional costs and have crippled economies across the globe, including officially plunging the United States into a recession.

As spread of the coronavirus shows signs of slowing down in some parts of the world, governments — and individual states in the US — are grappling with how to reopen society without catastrophically driving up infection rates again.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, compared simply ending restrictions for everyone all at once to a more gradual approach. The goal was to allow the greatest number of people to return to work while — critically — keeping the rate of new infections low enough so as not to overwhelm the health care system.

The results show that the optimal strategy would be to release about half of the population two to four weeks after the end of infection peak while keeping as much social distancing as possible, and then wait another three to four months — to let a possible second peak pass — before releasing the second group. Widespread testing would also have to take place, to monitor infection rates and how well the disease is controlled.

Keeping an eye on numbers

“Furthermore, to increase the number of people that can be first released, lockdown should not be ended until the number of new daily confirmed cases reaches a sufficiently low threshold,” the research team wrote in their report.

The model isn’t foolproof; it depends heavily on two variables that are hard to pin down precisely. “We show that for the gradual release strategy that two model parameters — the infection rate and the recovery rate (or fatality rate) from the virus — are the biggest unknowns that influence our predictions,” said Bonsall.

“We also modelled an ‘on-off’ strategy, of releasing everyone, but re-establishing lockdown if infections become too high. We conclude that the worst-case scenario of a gradual release is more manageable than the worst-case scenario of an on-off strategy,” the group added in their report.

Even though the model focused on the population of the UK and the capacity of its health care system, it can be used in countries large and small, Bonsall said.

“The model is general and can be applied, with different parameters, across different countries and within regions/states within countries,” Bonsall said. The researchers did not specify which groups should be released first, but in the paper suggested younger people, who are on the whole less susceptible to getting severely ill. There are also other ways of dividing the population, said Bonsall.

Who goes first?

“Deciding which groups get released might depend on critical functions to the economy, decisions about education over economy growth, critical functions to local economies,” he said. “It also might be decided based on geography,” he added.

“This has huge ramifications and is all out of scope of our work but obviously critical to implementing the findings by decision makers.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor and a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says transmission of the virus will certainly go up as people start to emerge from lockdown.

“You have to realize the virus isn’t going to go anywhere; it’s going to be present in that, as social mobility increases … you’re going to see an uptick in cases,” he told CNN. “The question will be, what is the trade-off between that uptick in case and the other aspects of people’s lives. How do you make that trade-off?”

Adalja said as long as hospitals have the capacity to treat the seriously ill patients, it’s up to individuals to decide what to do. “The only real exit strategy is going to be a vaccine, but because that’s not going to come from maybe two years or so, you have to make a decision on how you want to move forward,” he said.

As for the particular path for emerging from lockdown that is outlined in the paper, he said, in the US it is already too late, because many existing restrictions have already been loosened greatly in many places.

“I worry sometimes the models get overly interpreted as the only way forward and people forget that they’re not,” he added. “As we move into an exit strategy, it’s clear we’re going to get more cases. It’s just that we want to make sure that our social distancing recommendations are titrated for what’s going on in hospitals, so that we don’t get into a position like we saw in New York City in March.”

.

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos