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PUBLIC HEALTH IN LATE 2023
Reviewed by ANDRE BEAUMONT
30 November 2023
Will the same crowd that opposed schools closing in the pandemic do the same if the new pneumonia pathogen, that affects children most, emerging in China, becomes fatal in nature?
During Covid-19 children caught the variants most easily, spread them most easily but were mercifully least affected.
This time the same may occur but with them the most affected.
We do not need to wait for the deliberations of the Covid inquiry to know how to correct last time's errors.
We were too prompt to follow the Chinese and Italian models of lockdown.
Labour made the most calls for unrealistic measures, showing the poor judgement which labelled it as unfit to be the governing party. This level of unreality will be at the mercy of events.
Should the pathogen prove to be highly contagious and deadly this is what needs to happen in relation to adults if quasi-lockdown is necessary.
No travel bans. It will arrive; be ready.
[One must hope that the pathogen(s) or strains(s) are not new, and not as virulent or transmissible as early reporting has suggested].
Ask people to stay in their family groups or household units (if they live in a multi-occupancy household, for instance) and confine their social interactions to these as much as possible.
If workplaces stay open, ask anyone showing signs of the disease to stay at home for a prescribed period and pay them an agreed stipend to do so. No quibbling. No testing first. No test and trace.
No plastic screens in workplaces and taxis. No preventing families taking their relatives away from care homes. No plastic tents in these.
No preventing the mixing of generations against the participants' will. If they wish to meet, strongly advise meeting outside despite the weather.
Only minimalistic emergency legislation.
No police intervention.
Initialise vaccine research.
Observational science may provide quicker and better results than data collection and modelling.
Fix the hospital estate.