People in Britain who can work from home should be advised to do so to reduce their risk of contracting coronavirus and fuelling the outbreak by spreading it to others, a leading researcher has said.
The rising number of infections in the UK made it increasingly likely that the country would see local outbreaks in the coming weeks, with some potentially severe enough to place a strain on the NHS, said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Dynamics at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
“Everyone who can work from home should work from home,” Hanage told the Guardian. “The most important thing is that even if it won’t protect you entirely, it will delay you getting infected. And if we can ‘flatten the curve’ we will avoid the worst consequences for healthcare services.”
The government’s coronavirus strategy will prioritise “flattening the curve” when it moves from the “contain” phase of its response to the “delay” phase. At that point, efforts will shift away from tracing contacts of known patients and focus on reducing the spike in infections so hospitals are not overwhelmed. The move is intended to save lives by ensuring the sickest patients can still get the care they need.
On Monday, ministers and experts at an emergency Cobra meeting decided the UK would remain in the contain stage of its coronavirus response for now, and held off imposing “social distancing” measures, such as banning large gatherings and playing sports events behind closed doors.
But the rise in infections has prompted some researchers to bring in new working practices as a precaution. Roy Anderson, a leading epidemiologist at Imperial College London, and former chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, announced protective measures for his staff on Monday morning. “I have just advised my own research group that we will do our daily research project discussions by Skype, WhatsApp and Microsoft teams, starting this week,” he said.
What is Covid-19 – the illness that started in Wuhan?
It is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals.
What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes?
The virus can cause pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health.
Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough?
In the UK, the medical advice is that if you have recently travelled from areas affected by coronavirus, you should:
- stay indoors and avoid contact with other people as you would with the flu
- call NHS 111 to inform them of your recent travel to the area
More NHS advice on what to do if you think you have been exposed to the virus can be found here, and the full travel advice to UK nationals is available here.
Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?
China’s national health commission confirmed human-to-human transmission in January, and there have been such transmissions elsewhere.
How many people have been affected?
As of 9 March, more than 110,000 people have been infected in more than 80 countries, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
There have over 3,800 deaths globally. Just over 3,000 of those deaths have occurred in mainland China. 62,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus.
Why is this worse than normal influenza, and how worried are the experts?
We don’t yet know how dangerous the new coronavirus is, and we won’t know until more data comes in. Seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1% and is thought to cause about 400,000 deaths each year globally. Sars had a death rate of more than 10%.
Another key unknown is how contagious the coronavirus is. A crucial difference is that unlike flu, there is no vaccine for the new coronavirus, which means it is more difficult for vulnerable members of the population – elderly people or those with existing respiratory or immune problems – to protect themselves. Hand-washing and avoiding other people if you feel unwell are important. One sensible step is to get the flu vaccine, which will reduce the burden on health services if the outbreak turns into a wider epidemic.
Have there been other coronaviruses?
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals. In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 750. Mers appears to be less easily passed from human to human, but has greater lethality, killing 35% of about 2,500 people who have been infected.
Hanage added that there are “both selfish and societal benefits” to working from home where possible. “The selfish ones are obvious: if you don’t leave the house you are less likely to be infected. The societal one is that if you stop yourself being infected you can’t infect anyone else,” he said.
However, Trudie Lang, director of the Global Health Network at the University of Oxford, was more cautious about recommending home working. “The government and Public Health England are responding to the evidence as it comes to light,” she said. “It’s rapidly evolving and things might change, but right now the response from the government is entirely in line with the evidence.”
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said he expected the government to advise working from home where possible in the next week or two. But he said timing was crucial for it to make a difference: “There’s a cost to doing this. If you start too soon, you’re not going to have much impact. And the key point is that at some stage you need to stop doing it.”
The Department of Health said that at the moment there was no need to close workplaces or send staff home if they were not suspected of having coronavirus.
