Preparing a responsible crisis exit strategy: Jean-Philippe Platteau publishes an article in Nature Medicine with other researchers

5 Belgian researchers, among which the economist and Emeritus Professor Jean-Philippe Platteau and the immunologist Eric Muraille, have published an article in Nature Medicine, in which they present a method enabling a progressive release of citizens, a lot of them not being immune against Covid-19.

2 Belgian economists, 2 biologists and 1 epidemiologist have published a scientific article in which they propose a progressive deconfinement strategy in 3 complementary actions axes:

• Maintain social distancing is necessary as it enable to reduce the virus transmission under the manageable threshold for hospitals;
• Implement massive screening, which will together enable to detect virus carriers with or without symptoms and immune individuals, thus non-contagious and potentially protected against the illness.  The carriers would be placed in quarantine and their contacts would be traced. The others will enable to measure the herd immunity;
• Implement large-scale processes, which implies placing priorities.  According to the researchers, the first target for screening should be the essential services workers (health, security, food business operators)

Autors

Jean-Philippe Platteau, Emeritus Professor and economist at the UNamur

Eric Muraille, FNRS Senior scientist and immunologist at the ULB and UNamur

Marius Gilbert, FNRS Senior scientist, epidemiologist at the ULB

Mathias Dewatripont, Full Professor and economist at the ULB 

Michel Goldman, Full Professor and immunologist at the ULB

Full article in open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0871-y