Image: Andrew Davidson [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimdeia Commons
Proper use of information could ‘dramatically improve our understanding’ of the virus, says statistics body
The use of efficient statistical methods could dramatically improve understanding of how to reduce transmission of the virus that causes Covid-19, the Royal Statistical Society has said.
According to the learned society, the government’s Test, Trace and Isolate strategy is “central” to managing the pandemic.
“Through TTI, the Department for Health and Social Care has access to a rich source of information that—if properly utilised—has the potential to improve dramatically our understanding of how to reduce transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 disease,” the RSS said in a statement on 11 August.
The society’s Covid-19 Task Force makes three key recommendations including linking records to establish the proportion of high-risk individuals who tested positive for the virus during or soon after the end of their quarantine period.
It also recommends assessing the level of infection, with or without prior symptoms, among those who are self-isolating, as well as monitoring adherence to the instruction to stay at home.
The costs of doing so, the society says, could be lowered by “the efficient application of two statistical methods: record-linkage and random sampling. This would also capture information on adherence to quarantine, which can be useful for evaluating policy impact.”
Their recommendations follow the publication of a document on contact tracing and self-isolation by the Independent Sage, a rival group to the official Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
In the document, published on 10 August, the group recommends scrapping home testing and making sure that every person in England has access to a test within a short distance from where they live. Local public health and primary care doctors should get “real time information about test results and patient details”, they suggest.
They also recommend that a national framework be agreed “whereby top-tier local authorities can make their own decisions about new community restrictions and set up community centres for quarantine and support of mild cases who cannot isolate effectively at home”.
“If we don’t take isolation seriously our economy will spiral downwards,” the group warned. “We should have had an effective isolation policy in February, with better pandemic planning. Not to have one six months later is nothing short of public health malpractice.”