COVID is like a fire

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Categories: Comparisons

An analogy used in public communication of science:

"Sometimes I like to think of, you know, COVID as a fire, if we are the fuel, social mixing is the oxygen that allows the fuel to burn, vaccines the water that stops the fuel from burning, and COVID cases are the sparks that spread the fire. So, we are doing well on vaccines, but there's lots of dried wood left.

…the key thing is the human discussion with somebody who has COVID to identify who their contacts are and to ask them to isolate as well, and that really stops those sparks getting into the population and really helps to dampen down the fire."

 Prof. Andrew Hayward

 Prof. Andrew Hayward, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Inclusion Health Research at UCL was being interviewed on the radio.

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[Please be aware that a word may have different nuances, or even a different meaning, according to context.]« Back to Index

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.