UK’s top epidemiologist says coronavirus infections showing signs of slowdown

Britain’s top epidemiologist, who led modelling study for impact of vel coronavirus, has said that United Kingdom is showing signs of a slowdown in spread of COVID-19. Speaking to BBC Radio on March 30, Neil Ferguson said that probably 2-3 per cent of UK population has been infected by virus but at least a third of m remains asymptomatic.

Ferguson, professor of mamatical biology at Imperial College London, revealed that antibody tests are in final st and ready in “days rar than weeks”. researcher himself was tested positive for vel coronavirus after closely working with UK’s top officials on coronavirus response.

Ferguson led research in which team claimed that pandemic would have resulted in more than half a million deaths in UK and 2.2 million in United States in case of mitigation measures. researchers used data gared from Italy to project impact of pandemic if positive interventions are t made at earliest.

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Two fundamental strategies

According to researchers, first of two fundamental strategies was to focus on slowing down spread of virus but t necessarily stopping spread. study said that first strategy would have helped reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, while second strategy with more intensive interventions could interrupt transmission and reduce case numbers to low levels and maintaining situation indefinitely.

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In first scenario, such epidemics are predicted to peak over three to four months during summer. With home isolation of cases, home quarantine and social distancing of those over 70 years of could reduce peak healthcare demand by two-third and reduce deaths by half. But it would still likely to result in deaths of 250,000 people.

In second case, however, numbers are predicted to rise when interventions are relaxed. In context of UK and US, it requires a combination of social distancing of entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of ir family members.

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(Im credit: AP)