Get test and trace working properly, then check people are self-isolating.

1. Get Test and Trace working properly. Test results within 24hrs - 100% of contacts with people with a positive test must be contacted. We were promised this......if it is not deliverable then we should be told.

Have people drive around and find the contacts if they do not respond to telephone or email. The cost to the economy and everyone if we don't do this will completely outweigh the cost of recruiting these people.

Employ more people who are not "Clinicians" in the Test and Trace to ensure the tracing is done quickly and then pass the "Call/Case" to a "Clinician" to advise.

2. Check on those who are supposed to be self-isolating. They can not be allowed to leave their house/home. This is the crucial piece as it is obvious that people are not doing this. IF everyone with a positive test or their contacts self isolates the numbers do not continue to rise at the rate they are doing.

I know this is a tricky area to get the balance right in terms of medical confidentiality, but the idea that we should just "Hope" that people are doing the right thing appears to be naive.

If that works why do we have laws and rules at all. People should just do the right thing?

The most important element of attempting to control the spread has to be people with a positive test and their contacts must self isolate.

As Margaret Ferrier has unfortunately demonstrated and surveys have suggested, this is not happening. Closing restaurants and pubs or anything else doesn't work without this.

3. Set up an anonymous helpline to allow people to report anyone they know has either symptoms or a positive test or is a close contact. Investigate as many as possible offer the alternative of getting tested or self-isolating.

4. Provide support for people to do the right thing and self-isolate. (I believe this is what the £500 payment is to do?) expand on this if necessary. (It will be a fraction of the cost to the country if we do not get this under control.)

5. Raise the fines for people who have been told to self-isolate who leave their homes. This is an unwelcome step, but it is necessary. If we are willing to accept the need to restrict peoples freedom of movement generally, then not concentrating on the most crucial element is ridiculous.

If test and trace work properly and people with a positive test, symptoms or a close contact self-isolate, the spread slows (Either this or there is something about this virus we have completely missed.)

Then the whole target outbreaks strategy works and we can reopen everything bar large gatherings (Still socially distancing, masks, hygiene, test and self-isolate.)

The problem is people are not Self-Isolating and by that I mean never leaving the house for anything other than by ambulance to hospital.

Why the contribution is important

The virus spreads from person to person mainly via close personal contact . If everyone with symptoms, a positive test or is a close contact of either, then self-isolates for 14 days the spread slows.

As Margaret Ferrier has unfortunately demonstrated and surveys have suggested, this is not happening. Closing restaurants and pubs or anything else doesn't work without this.

by Lunardirp on October 11, 2020 at 04:20PM

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