Читать книгу COVID-19 and Risk - Alaszewski Andy - Страница 22

As COVID-​19 spread across Europe in late February from an epicentre in Northern Italy, policy makers and their scientific advisers discussed the risks of the new virus. The dominant view was that it was a flu-​like virus (Syed, 2020) and that they should monitor it through tracking and tracing but not restrict travel or social interaction. On 11 March, David Halpern, a member of SAGE, outlined the government strategy: ‘to cocoon, to protect those at-​risk groups so they don’t catch the disease. By the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity has been achieved in the rest of the population’ (Sengupta, 2020).

On 13 March on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Patrick Vallance outlined government policy, stating: ‘Our aim is to try and reduce the peak –​ not suppress it completely, also because most people get a mild illness, to build up some degree of herd immunity whilst protecting the most vulnerable’ (Kermani, 2020).