IT’S NOT POSSIBLE to stop the spread of, or eradicate, infectious respiratory disease, and it’s a waste of public health resources and capacity to try.

There’s very limited scientific evidence that restrictions on mass gatherings have any significant effect on virus transmission.

Even a 99.9% international travel restriction might delay the pandemic wave by only a month or two, and there should be no plan to close borders.

There’s very little evidence of widespread benefit from the wearing by the public of facemasks.

This was the advice given by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) to the UK Government a year ago today (4th February 2020). In the minutes of the Fourth SAGE meeting on Wuhan Coronavirus held on 4th February1, they wrote:

“SAGE agreed that HMG should continue to plan using current influenza pandemic assumptions, which can be modified as data becomes more certain”.

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