Low critical care capacity and high severity of COVID-19 mean there is little functional difference between successful curve "flattening the curve" and ongoing containment, 16 March 2020
Paper prepared by Imperial College on mitigation strategies.
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Paper prepared by Imperial College on mitigation strategies and the functional difference between “flattening the curve” and ongoing containment.
The paper was considered at SAGE 16 on 16 March 2020.
This is 1 of 4 papers informing the SPI-M-O: Consensus view on behavioural and social interventions as published under SAGE 16 and should be read in that context alongside the other documents for SAGE 16. The SPI-M-O consensus view summarises the main insights across the available evidence and modelling at the time.
These results should not be interpreted as a forecast, but rather illustrative outputs under a set of assumptions to inform wider discussion. These modelling outputs are subject to uncertainty given the evidence available at the time, and dependent on the assumptions made.
It should be viewed in context: the paper was the best assessment of the evidence at the time of writing. The picture is developing rapidly and, as new evidence or data emerges, SAGE updates its advice accordingly. Therefore, some of the information in this paper may have been superseded and the author’s opinion or conclusion may since have developed.
These documents are released as pre-print publications that have provided the government with rapid evidence during an emergency. These documents have not been peer-reviewed and there is no restriction on authors submitting and publishing this evidence in peer-reviewed journals.