Mobile apps the best hope for ending lock down, says Staffordshire virus expert
Contact tracing through mobile phone apps is the best hope for ending the lock down and preventing a deadly second wave of Covid-19, a virus expert believes.
The Government is grappling with how to begin to ease the lock down, which has been in place for more than a month, while preventing a surge in the spread of coronavirus which could overwhelm the NHS.
There are signals that the lock down could start to be eased over the next few weeks, with Boris Johnson under pressure to set out his exit strategy.
Dr Arthur Hosie, senior lecturer in biological and biomedical sciences at Staffordshire University and an expert in the behaviour of viruses, said social distancing measures would have to be maintained for months, and that mobile phone apps alerting people they had been in contact with someone who has Covid-19 was the most realistic way of preventing a second wave.
Such apps are being developed in the UK and have already gone live in Australia.
Dr Hosie said: "In an ideal world we would have a vaccine, in an ideal world we would have anti-viral drugs, but we are not going to have them any time soon.
"We need to be keeping up social distancing and making sure we detect any cases and track who people have come into contact with.
"(Apps) would be a useful use of that technology but alone it is not enough. If people get automated messages that they have come into contact we need people to be responsible.
"We really need to be tracing about 20 contacts people have to keep this R value below one."
Dr Hosie said he feared people were beginning to become weary of the lock down, which was imposed by the Prime Minister on March 23, but stressed social distancing measures would have to be followed for the foreseeable future.
He said: "What's happened over the past few days is people have started to get tired of the lock down. All the messaging is 'we are beating this, we are winning' but unfortunately we are just slowing it down, we are just delaying it.
"If we don't do what's required we are going to have a second wave. If that happens more people will die."
Challenge
He added: "People need to be aware if they get symptoms, even if the tests come back negative, they should erring on the side of caution, not going to work and staying at home."
The professor said the lock down would need to be eased very gradually in order to prevent a second spike and that there would be a need to ensure "employers abide by social distancing measures".
"Any shops would have to get used to what we have seen at supermarkets," he said.
"Pubs and restaurants I think are many months down the line. The challenge is keeping away from people. That's all we have."
Allowing Covid-19 to take hold in the population so enough people get it and then recover from it, known as herd immunity, was suggested early on as a possible way to beat the virus.
But Dr Hosie said it is not something that can be done without costing tens of thousands of lives.
He said: "We do not know whether immunity is robust or long-standing. With other coronaviruses, immunity only lasts a couple of years so it might not necessarily be effective in that way.
"If we allow the virus to run rife we are not talking about 20,000 lives, we are talking about 200,000. I am not prepared to sacrifice that amount of lives and I hope the Government is not."
