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There have been suggestions that some people with COVID-19 displaying mild symptoms will be asked to recover at home rather than in hospital.
Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:
“It makes no sense whatsoever to send people with a mild illness to hospital – it will just clog up resources and pose an infection risk to healthcare workers and already-sick people. As numbers rise – and they inevitably will – we will have to manage mild cases in the home, because the potential risk from having lots of relatively well, but infected patients in hospital is too great. Yes they will have to self-isolate at home, and we will have to trust that they do this.”
Dr Alexander Edwards, Associate Professor in Biomedical Technology, Reading School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, said:
“Remember that the NHS is driven by evidence with patient care at the centre of all decisions. This situation is no different. We are lucky that we have one of the longest established public health systems in the world, and are informed by the latest science. What you should ask is: where would I prefer to be if I have a mild infection? At home, you have your own bed, access to your preferred books/TV/internet/radio to keep you entertained. Even though our NHS hospitals are really excellent and well equipped, with some amazing staff, it’s still more comfortable to be at home.
“The primary reason to stay at home therefore is for safety and care quality. Anyone at home whose condition gets worse will of course be cared for rapidly and with all required medical care – whether that is at-home support or rapid transfer to hospital.
“People can be relied upon to isolate themselves properly if we help everyone to understand why isolation is required. People should make every effort to help contain spread, in order to protect those most vulnerable out there. If people carry on travelling around and meeting others as usual when infected, the outbreak will rapidly spread. So it’s important to emphasise that symptomatic infected people MUST remain isolated, this is our only defence against this virus.”
Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:
“If people do not need to be in hospital, then home is probably the best place for them. They will not be exposed to any further infection whilst in hospital, they will likely be mixing with fewer people, and there would be no transmission from patient to healthcare worker, for example as we have seen happen in China. This will reduce the short-term pressures on the NHS and thus leave capacity for more serious cases.
“We are in the process of moving from ‘containment’ phase to ‘delay’ and revisions to recommended practices will reflect that. People’s behaviour can greatly influence the spread of any outbreak of infectious disease, and so if anyone is advised to self-isolate, it is hugely important they do exactly that.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/
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