Restrictions could be needed till autumn, says leading expert

A key scientific expert behind the UK’s first coronavirus lockdown says restrictions might be needed till the autumn. 

Professor Neil Ferguson mentioned the nation could anticipate to see ‘well over’ 1,000 deaths a day – by date of dying, not the reported figures launched every day – earlier than the numbers begin to drop.

He informed BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he hoped hospital admissions ‘might plateau’ a while within the subsequent week and that he thought round 20% of the inhabitants had now been contaminated with Covid-19.

Asked if there could be restrictions for a lot of months to return, he mentioned: ‘Yes, and we can’t predict all of these items upfront. We couldn’t have predicted this new variant developing, however the brand new variant doubtless will make the comfort of restrictions tougher as a result of it’s considerably extra transmissible.

‘So it will be a gradual process to the autumn.’

The senior epidemiologist mentioned some components of England are exhibiting a plateau in circumstances, whereas the speed of progress throughout the nation as an entire is slowing.

Mr Ferguson mentioned he thought the present wave of the epidemic might be coming underneath management in some areas.

However, he mentioned restrictions of some type could be needed for months till the coronavirus vaccines present a excessive stage of safety.

He added: ‘I think it’s a lot too early to say precisely when case numbers are going to begin coming down, however in some NHS areas in England and in Wales there’s signal of plateauing.’

London specifically was seeing a drop in its variety of optimistic coronavirus assessments, alongside the South East, he mentioned, however warned that this isn’t being seen all over the place.

‘Both case numbers and hospital admissions are going up in many other areas but, overall, at a national level we’re seeing the speed of progress gradual’, he defined.

Professor Ferguson, who’s director of the Medical Research Council’s Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, mentioned he would anticipate to see case numbers ‘continue to come down slowly at a national level’ however with regional variations.

‘It will take longer though for hospital admissions – daily admissions – to start coming down and even longer for hospital bed occupancy to come down,’ he mentioned.

Asked what number of extra weeks of rising hospital admissions and deaths the UK could be , he mentioned: ‘It critically depends on whether the lockdown we’re within the second will truly management progress in all areas.

‘But I’d hope that hospital admissions would possibly plateau, as a substitute of preserve going up, a while within the subsequent week.

‘Hospital mattress occupancy might proceed to rise slowly for as much as two weeks and deaths possibly even for longer.

‘We’re going to be effectively over 1,000 deaths a day, even measured by the date folks die quite than the date deaths are reported, earlier than numbers begin coming down.’

He warned that the whole variety of deaths within the UK ‘unfortunately is going to be well over 100,000, there’s nothing we will do about that now’.

Only about 20% of the inhabitants has been contaminated thus far, which had resulted in 100,000 deaths, he mentioned.

‘So we’ve got to get to very excessive ranges of vaccine protection in these susceptible teams earlier than we will scale back the chance of getting mainly the identical variety of deaths once more.

‘If we solely stand up to 70% protection in within the aged, as an example, that also leaves 30% unprotected plus all people else.

‘We can still get a very large epidemic, which unfortunately could kill many, many people, so what the modelling and all the analysis and all the groups feeding into Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) says is, we need to be very cautious in how we relax restrictions and try to ensure we get as high a vaccine coverage as possible.’

Professor Ferguson advised that the requirement to isolate after coming into contact with a person with coronavirus could be relaxed for individuals who have lately had the virus, akin to NHS employees, however mentioned this was ‘a question for policymakers’.

Get in contact with our information group by emailing us at [email protected].

For extra tales like this, verify our information web page.

MORE : England could escape harder lockdown as specialists say present guidelines are working