This blog is a (much!) less-than-formal outlining of recent travels, events, happenings, thoughts and comments which tend to have some occupational relevance, but are on occasion nothing more than a means of passing the time while waiting for trains, planes & automobiles...

Friday 3 April 2020

Terminal or Terminology Error?

I was triangulating some background research as part of a series of "What-If" planning scenarios for College Based Higher Education from September onwards (student numbers, financial impact on partner HEIs, etc) and when looking at the government's own High Consequence Infectious Disease page was surprised to discover that Covid-19 isn't one of them.

Had I been reading the website two days ago, I might have thought it to be some sort of April Fools joke, but we're apparently in full stay-at-home lockdown for something that the 4 Nations Public Health HCID Group and the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) do not consider Covid-19 to meet the following criteria:
•acute infectious disease
•typically has a high case-fatality rate
•may not have effective prophylaxis or treatment •often difficult to recognise and detect rapidly
•ability to spread in the community and within healthcare settings
•requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely

So what's really going on, and why?