Could over half of the UK universe have been debunk to the novel coronavirus responsible COVID-19 since January ? That ’s the figure someBritish press is reporting , basedon a controversial new simulation created by the University of Oxford . If accurate , that would optimistically suggest that a real constituent of the UK universe has already been infect by the refreshing coronavirus SAR - CoV-2 and acquire some protective immunity .
However – and it ’s a big “ however ” – many infectious disease expertshave urged for extreme care when interpreting the account , indicate it makes too many assumptions and could be “ open to gross over - interpretation by others . ”Regardless of conclusion drawn from the fashion model , the advice remain the same : stay at home , void unneeded physical contact with other citizenry , andwash your hand .
The unpublished newspaper – a draft of which can beread here ( PDF ) – used a Susceptible - Infected - recuperate ( SIR ) fashion model to work out how many people might have been already reveal to COVID-19 in the UK and Italy . Out of three simulated scenarios , one close that up to 68 percent of hoi polloi may already have been exposed to infection between mid - January and March 19 , 2020 .
This suggests that the telephone number of “ hidden cause , ” in which hoi polloi are symptomless or only display mild symptom , could be much higher than the telephone number of confirm cases suggest . By their working , there could be over 1,000 the great unwashed exposed to COVID-19 for every death that ’s confirmed . This suggests that the current wave of infections in the UK and Italy could last between 2 to 3 calendar month .
“ significantly , the results we present here suggest the ongoing epidemic in the UK and Italy started at least a month before the first reported dying and have already led to the accumulation of meaning degree of herd immunity in both nation , ” the study reads .
But epidemiology expert are warning there are too many caveats to guide finis from all of this . For one , the report attempts to infer infection rates without using any direct datum gathered from serological surveys and COVID-19 tests . The study is also not yet peer - reviewed , meaning it has not gone through the rigorous evaluation of others in this area to see if the resolution can be copy or stand up to criticism .
“ The exact figures must be viewed with precaution . The analytic thinking is found on an abstract model which does not describe for spacial dispersion of contagion , and neither the nation in this analytic thinking ( Italy or Great Britain ) has presented an even geographical statistical distribution of infection,”saidProfessor Rowland Kao , Chair of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science at the University of Edinburgh .
" In my view , the model presented by Lourenço and fellow suffer from a routine of cardinal failings which make me doubt its utility,“addedProfessor Paul Hunter , Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia in England . “My main criticism is that a very simple SIR example that assumes consummate mixing of the universe which is almost always ill-timed at a land floor . We do not all have an equal random chance of meeting every other someone in the UK , infected or otherwise . ”
It ’s unclear why the research wasshared on Twitterby the researchers in the first place . fit in to the berth , the enquiry will soon come along on the dispersion servermedRxiv , itself a pre - print site for unpublished or not yet peer - reviewed research in aesculapian , clinical , and related to health sciences .
In the backwash of the COVID-19 pandemic , many researchers are print their workplace while awaiting peer - recapitulation in ordination to share resources with other scientist and researchers , as well as to broadcast potentially full of life information into the public sphere as quickly as possible . While it does n’t needfully mean the study is false or poor tone , it does mean the upshot should be interpreted with constraint .
The story does , however , foreground one full point that everyone can check one : if we require to understand and defeat this virus , we need more tests . In the Word of God of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , director - general of the World Health Organization , last week:“you may not push a flaming blindfolded and we can not blockade this pandemic if we do n’t know who is infect . We have a unproblematic message for all countries ; trial , test , test . ”
