“..(b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely.Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. ..
“.. We predict that school and university closure will have an impact on the epidemic, under the assumption that children do transmit as much as adults, even if they rarely experience severe disease12,16. We find that school and universiyt closure is a more effective strategy to support epidemic suppression than mitigation; when combined with population-widesocial distancing, the effect of school closure is to further amplify the breaking of social contacts between households, and thus supress transmission.
“..epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound.
Good news:
“..Evidence from the FluWatch cohort study suggests that re-infection with the same strain of seasonal circulating coronavirus is highly unlikely in the same or following season
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