Coronavirus 39 Circuit Break

A circuit break is the wrong analogy.

Ciruit breakers break the circuit, stopping the current instantaneously and making the system safe. That might be the right anaolgy if we created a situation where the virus could not jump from person to person. As I pointed out in Coronavirus 37 the virus will disappear if nobody meets anybody else. But as I also pointed out, that's not going to happen. Even in the stricktest lockdown some people still go to work.

A better analogy is adding a resitor, impeding the current, impeding the flow of the virus through the population. The greater the impedance the quicker the all important R value will be reduced, exponential growth ended and the road to suppression and elimination regained.

The lockdown proposed by SAGE three weeks ago and supported by Keir Starmer yesterday and opposed just now by the Prime Minister as he listens to the large number of Tory MPs who want fewer restriction, and thus less impedence to the viral spread, will not be sufficient, however it is branded. Two or three weeks, is just not a long enough time to break the circuit.

We need to do more and do it faster if the catastrophe that the scientists warn of is to be avoided. Each of us must judge what we can do to avoid passing the virus on. As the raindrop said "I didn't cause the flood". Each of us has our own role to play in being part of the solution rather than the part of the problem.

While the politicians dilly-dally need to have our own #PeoplesLockdown.