Exit strategyOne Simple Number Can Solve Boris's Grimly Complex Lockdown Dilemma
When Boris Johnson returns to work, he will have to grapple with a difficult decision. The British economy is on the brink, and must be revived, but the PM cannot risk the dreaded second coronavirus peak. Leaders of countries must make tough decisions in difficult situations, and Allister Heath writes that Boris’s decision ranks below the Cuban missile crisis matrix, of course, but above Tony Blair’s Iraq War calculations or Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands choices. “The Prime Minister faces a series of horrible moral and practical dilemmas best understood through elementary mathematics. The key concept is the R0 (pronounced R-nought): If the R0 is under 1, every victim infects fewer than one other person each, so the virus remains contained; if it is above 1, they each pass the virus to more than one other, contaminating swathes of the population quickly.”
When Boris Johnson returns to work, he will have to grapple with a difficult decision. The British economy is on the brink, and must be revived, but the PM cannot risk the dreaded second coronavirus peak. Leaders of countries must make tough decisions in difficult situations, and Allister Heath writes in The Telegraph that Boris’s decision ranks below the Cuban missile crisis matrix, of course, but above Tony Blair’s Iraq War calculations or Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands choices.
Heath writes:
The Prime Minister faces a series of horrible moral and practical dilemmas best understood through elementary mathematics. The key concept is the R0 (pronounced R-nought): the basic reproduction number. This denotes the number of people an infected person passes the virus to, on average. If the R0 is under 1, every victim infects fewer than one other person each, so the virus remains contained; if it is above 1, they each pass the virus to more than one other, contaminating swathes of the population quickly.
A few weeks ago, the R0 appeared to have hit 3 or 4 – each infected person was spreading it to several others, who in turn did the same, and so on. The number of cases exploded. The sum total of the measures introduced to date – as well, most likely, as a dose of luck – has taken the R0 to below 1. Again, nobody knows for certain how low it has fallen – it could be 0.4 or 0.8 – but the total number of infected people is falling.
Heath notes that Sweden’s case gives us hope. It now seems clear that it, too, has reduced its R0 to below 1, without having to impose a formal lockdown and at a much lower economic cost. “If confirmed, this would be a remarkable achievement, implying that certain measures, such as hand washing, isolating the vulnerable and voluntary social distancing, might be enough, without having to resort to lockdowns. But we don’t know for sure.”
Will Boris be able to avoid the R0 shooting back above 1, and thus the creation of a dreaded “second peak”? “This is a moment for genuine, hard, unforgiving statecraft in chaotic, uncertain, semi-random circumstances. Boris Johnson always knew what he was getting into; history will be his judge,” Heath concludes.
