The 4/10 Strategy: Four Days of Work Followed by 10 Days of Lockdown to Avoid a Second Spike in Infections

This strategy has been proposed by a group of Israeli experts, but it has caught the attention of various countries as they consider how they will battle out Covid-19 on their own terms.

WHEN it comes to the coronavirus, everything finds itself in the experimental phase. Countries on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have now been living with Covid-19 for only a few months. For now, there is no vaccine, and nobody knows for sure if this disease will come back in some sort of seasonal sequel.

However, once the peak of the pandemic has been surpassed, governments must gradually step forward to revitalise their economies. The GDP in France has fallen 5.8 per cent, in Germany it has fallen 5.4 per cent and in Spain 5.2 per cent, although experts warn that the worst is yet to come.

A model of combining work with the conditions of a pandemic has been proposed by a group of experts led by Uri Alon, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Sciences in Israel, and has already caught the attention of authorities in several countries.

The biologist plans to battle Covid-19 using his own cycle. This translates into the 4/10 formula, which essentially means allowing citizens to return to work for four days and then remain isolated for another 10 days.

“According to the information we currently have on Covid-19, most carriers did not infect others during the first four days after becoming infected. From the fifth day, there is a period of 72 hours (three days) in which they are infectious,” explains Alon.

“Therefore, if someone were to become infected during the days in which they are working, they would later be quarantined on the days in which they can infect the rest, in such a way that the risk is reduced,” he added.

Starting this Monday, May 4, the vast majority of countries in Europe begin to emerge from the dark cave created by the coronavirus. In Spain, it has been called the path to the “new normal”; in Italy, “coexistence with the virus”; in France, “de-escalated”; in Portugal, “state of calamity” … The challenge, however, is the same for everyone: to reactivate the economy without promoting a second peak. A complex equation to figure out.

The Israeli experts warn that the model would only work under the condition that all members of a family carry out the same cycle, including children in schools, where he also suggests that there are different shifts. Logically, if after the 10 days of confinement there is someone in the family nucleus who continues with symptoms, the quarantine would have to be extended to the entire family.

The biologist recommends, as a second derivative, to make the strategy even more effective, dividing the population into two groups. Each one would have a different cycle of 4/10, which, according to the expert, “would increase productive activity and reduce population density and, therefore, infection rates on weekdays.” The downside, however, is that this scenario would be more difficult to implement.

Written by

Laura Kemp

Originally from UK, Laura is based in Axarquia and is a writer for the Euro Weekly News covering news and features. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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