The Week UK - 04.04.2020

6 NEWS Politics

THEWEEK4April 2020

Controversy of the week

Maths, life and death

Last month, ImperialCollege London“releasedoneofthe

most consequentialacademic papers in recent history”,said

FraserNelsoninThe Daily Telegraph. In it ,researchers

reportedthat theirmathematical modellinghad predictedthat

theUK’s existing strategy would fail to containthe outbreak,

resulting in up to 260,000 deaths. It joltedBoris Johnsoninto

imposing thelockdownhe hadresisted. Butafew days later, a

group fromOxfordUniversityposite danothertheory, using a

different model: that the disease couldhavealrea dy infected up

to 68% of theBritishpopulation. If so,the death rate istiny,

and “herd immunity” might have already been acquired. The

Oxford study“hasits(vociferous)critics”,but it points to a

real dilemma. Looking aroundtheworld, the picture isvery

unclear. “Isthis virus aterrifying killeror amanageable risk?”

Swedenappea rs to believeitisthe latter, said Freddie SayersonUnHerd. There, schools, barsand

restaurantsarestill open.Gatherings ofup to 50 peopleare allowed. This policyisbeing ledbythe

stateepidemiologist Anders Tegnell, andis basedon detailedregion-by-region modelling, which

predicts that Sweden’slarg egeographical spread, andits verylownumberofmultigenerational

households,will protect itfromserious harm. Tegnellis highly dubious about the Imperialstudy.

“It’snotapeer-reviewedpaper,”hesays. “Itmightberight, but itmight also be terribly wrong.”

No modelling is perfect,said Tom Whipple inTheTimes.Many virologistshave privatelyexpressed

concernthat so much of UK policy appears“to hinge on onemodel”.But thatdoesn’tmeanweare

free to pick “Team Oxford, or Team Imperial”. As theysay in thefield: “All models are wrong,just

someare morewrongthanothers.”Andmanyexper ts are scathing about the Oxford study. The

idea that 68% of us couldhavealrea dy beeninfectedrests on a nimprobable assumption,said Matt

Reynolds in Wired: thatjust oneinevery 1,000 people infected needs to behospit alised. This figure

just doesn’t matchthe real-world datafrom,say, Italy.

Even so,the Oxford studyhas beenmisinterpreted,said ThereseRaphaelonBloomberg. It was

designed to ask how farCovi d-19 had spread. Its main conclusion, according to its leader, Sunetra

Gupta,was thatonlythroughtestingfor antibodies canwe be certain about ratesofinfection.In

thesedifficult times,welooktoscientiststo assuageour uncertainty. “Areweonthe upwardslopeof

adeathmarchorseein gthe ti pofanicebergofpeople whoare infectedbut benign?”Willitbeover

by June,ori nsix months?The answer “liessomewhere withinarangeofpossibilities”; this isn’t

veryreassuring, but it’s the best thescientistscan offer.Our assessments arechanging daily on the

basis of hard evidence comingoutofChina ,SouthKorea, Italy, Spain andthe U S. Butint he

meantime, it’sall tooclear whatweneed todo:“isolate, test,trace,hope”.

Stockholm,Sweden:notonlockdown

Spirit of the age

Good weekfor:

PrinceHarryand Meghan Markle,who managedto leave

Canadaand move intoarented home in California beforethe

bordersclos ed. Having officially stepped down as workingroyals

on 31 March, theyarereportedlyplanning to startanew life in or

near LosAngeles, inorder to be closetoMeghan’s mother.

Shoppers,afte rleading supermarkets, including Waitrose,

Morrisons andAldi, announcedthatthey were relaxingthe

restrictionsthey ’d imposedto prevent stockpiling. Meanwhile,

Tescosaid it wasincreasing itscapacity tohome-del iver shopping,

and M&Ssaiditwas in troducingan“essentials” hamper.

Aretirednurse fromSuffolk,whobecame the oldest person

known to have survivedthe coronavirusinBritain.Identified only

as Joy, the94-year-old credited the“brilliant” staffatJamesPaget

hospitalin GreatYarmouthfor herrecovery.

Bad week for:

Carluccio’s,whichbecamethelatestcasualty ofthelockdown.

The Italian restaurantchain,whichhadbeenstruggling for some

time, wentinto administration,putting 2,000 jobs at risk.

Edinburgh,with thecancellation of t he Fringe andInternational

festivals,which hadbeenscheduled forAugust. The city’s Art

Festival andInternationalBookFest ivalhave alsobeen cancelled.

Tennislovers,aft er Wimbledon, and the entiregrass-court

season,was called off,followingemergencymeetings held this

week. In France, organisersof theTourdeFranc ewere looking

into whether theracecould beheld “behind closeddoors”this

summer–withnospectators lining theroute.

AirliftforBritonsabroad

A£ 75 mplantorepatriatethe

300,000 Britons stranded

abroad owing to Covid-

lockdowns was announced

this week. Aimed at tourists,

and not expats, it will

prioritise vulnerable people,

and involveamix of

scheduledand chartered

flights. Passengers have

been told to use commercial

flights if they are inacountry

where flights are still taking

off, and the Government has

urged airlines to help people

whose flights were cancelled

to get home at “little to no

extra cost”. Britons were

advised to make themselves

known to embassies and

high commissions, and await

further details. Passengers

will be expected to pay for

their flights, but loans to

cover the cost will be made

available to them.

Planforroughsleepers

Last week, the Government

told councils in England that

they must house all rough

sleepers, and thosein hostels

and night shelters, within 72

hours, to stop the spread of

the coronavirus. However,

according to The Guardian,

thousands of people

remained un-housed at the

end of that period. Local

authorities have asked for

more funding. In response,

ministers have pointed to an

earlier announcement that

£1.6bn in emergency funds

will be given to councils.

Pollwatch

92%of British voters say

they support the country’s

current lockdown measures.

57%think the measures

should go even further, and

33%think there should be a

ban placed on all public

transport.

Opinium/The Observer

Boris Johnson’s net

favourability rating (those

who say they have a

positive opinion of him,

minus those who have a

negative opinion) rose from

-7 to +20 during March. The

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s

rating rose from -7 to +49.

YouGov/The Independent

84%of Britons say they are

“mostly” following official

advice to stay at home.55%

are working from home

when they would not

ordinarily be;24%are

required to go to work.

Savanta/The Daily Telegraph

Thedayswhenpeoplegave

theirpetsdistinctively

animalnames–whether

Rex,Rover,Tiddles,

PompomorPuss–appear

tobeover.Nineoutoften

ofthemostpopularnames

given to puppies and kittens

in 2019 (among them

Poppy, Molly, Alfie and

Max) also appeared in the

top 100 names for babies.

Bosses are reportedly panic-

buying office surveillance

software so that they can

keep an eye on their

employees now working

from home. Producers of

the software, which can

monitor online activity and

keystrokes, and even take

screenshots, have reported

asurge in demand since it

became clear that a

lockdown was coming.

One firm, ActivTrak, says its

software orders have tripled

in afew weeks.