More stories

  • in

    ‘Two Americas’ may emerge as Delta variant spreads and vaccination rates drop

    With Covid vaccination penetration in the US likely to fall short of Joe Biden’s 70% by Fourth of July target, pandemic analysts are warning that vaccine incentives are losing traction and that “two Americas” may emerge as the aggressive Delta variant becomes the dominant US strain.Efforts to boost vaccination rates have come through a variety of incentives, from free hamburgers to free beer, college scholarships and even million-dollar lottery prizes. But of the efforts to entice people to get their shots have lost their initial impact, or failed to land effectively at all.“It’s just not working,” Irwin Redlener at the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia University, told Politico. “People aren’t buying it. The incentives don’t seem to be working – whether it’s a doughnut, a car or a million dollars.”In Ohio, a program offering five adults the chance to win $1m boosted vaccination rates 40% for over a week. A month later, the rate had dropped to below what it had been before the incentive was introduced, Politico found.Oregon followed Ohio’s cash-prize lead but saw a less dramatic uptick. Preliminary data from a similar lottery in North Carolina, launched last week, suggests the incentive is also not boosting vaccination rates there.Public officials are sounding alarms that the window between improving vaccination penetration and the threat from the more severe Delta variant, which accounts for around 10% of US cases, is beginning to close. The Delta variant appears to be much more contagious than the original strain of Covid-19 and has wreaked havoc in countries like India and the United Kingdom.“I certainly don’t see things getting any better if we don’t increase our vaccination rate,” Scott Allen of the county health unit in Webster, Missouri, told Politico. The state has seen daily infections and hospitalizations to nearly double over the last two weeks.Overall, new US Covid cases have plateaued to a daily average of around 15,000 for after falling off as the nation’s vaccination program ramped up. But the number of first dose vaccinations has dropped to 360,000 from 2m in mid-April. A quarter of those are newly eligible 12- to 15-year-olds.Separately, pandemic researchers are warning that a picture of “two Americas” is emerging – the vaccinated and unvaccinated – that in many ways might reflect red state and blue state political divides.Only 52% of Republicans said they were partially or fully vaccinated, and 29% said they have no intention of getting a vaccine, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll. 77% of Democrats said they were already vaccinated, with just 5% responding that were resisting the vaccine.“I call it two Covid nations,” Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told BuzzFeed News.Bette Korber, a computational biologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said she expected variant Delta to become the most common variant in the US within weeks. “It’s really moving quickly,” Korber told Buzzfeed.On Friday, President Biden issued a plea to Americans who have not yet received a vaccine to do so as soon as possible.“Even while we’re making incredible progress, it remains a serious and deadly threat,” Biden said in remarks from the White House, saying that the Delta variant leaves unvaccinated people “even more vulnerable than they were a month ago”.“We’re heading into, God willing, the summer of joy, the summer of freedom,” Biden said. “On July 4, we are going to celebrate our independence from the virus as we celebrate our independence of our nation. We want everyone to be able to do that.” More

  • in

    Covid: Minister doesn’t rule out winter lockdown after PHE expert says ‘we may have to’ reimpose measure

    A cabinet minister has refused to rule out another Covid-19 lockdown this winter after Dr Susan Hopkins said it could be necessary to control the virus.Boris Johnson has promised an “irreversible” end to Covid-19 restrictions — a move that was due to take place on Monday but is now delayed until 19 July amid a surge in cases.But Dr Hopkins, the director for Covid-19 at Public Health England, said Britain needed to move to a situation where we can “live with this” in the longer term.She told The Andrew Marr Show: “I think that means that we wouldn’t normally put people into lockdown for severe cases of influenza.“We may have to do further lockdowns this winter, I can’t predict the future – it really depends on whether the hospitals start to become overwhelmed at some point.“But I think we will have alternative ways to manage this through vaccination, through antivirals, through drugs, through testing, that we didn’t have last winter, and all of those things allow us different approaches, rather than restrictions on lives and restrictions on livelihoods, that will move us forward into the next phase of learning to live with this as an endemic, as something that happens as part of the respiratory viruses.”Asked about her comments, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland declined to rule out more restrictions, telling Times Radio: “The essence of the virus is you can’t ever say mission accomplished”.Dr Hopkins, who is a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said there had been “rises and falls” in coronavirus cases across the country, with the virus having “definitely reversed” in Bolton and “stabilised” in Blackburn with Darwen but continuing to “rise quite fast” in London and the northeast.The scientist appeared to suggest it was unlikely remaining social-distancing measures would be lifted in England sooner than the earmarked 19 July date.“My strong opinion is the longer we just take our time and get through this period to get the maximum amount of people vaccinated is a positive thing for this summer and to get us through this winter,” she said.“So my view would be to keep going, that we can live at this level and then that would mean hopefully when we come out of this level of restrictions, which are much easier to live with I think for many of us, then we would be able to get on and get back to normal and stay back to normal for a very prolonged period.”She also suggested people should opt for a staycation over a holiday abroad this summer, but offered some hope for the future.“I think we should be predominantly deciding to holiday at home this summer while we get all of our population vaccinated – but I think we are moving step wise closer to being able to renew our lives and move around to other countries and to change the way we manage to live with this virus,” she told the programme.The UK recorded more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases for the third day in a row on Saturday, while the death toll from the virus rose to 127,970 after a further 14 fatalities. More

  • in

    When will lockdown end now that roadmap has been delayed? Everything we know

    The UK government’s hopes of scrapping the final social restrictions imposed on the public to tackle the coronavirus pandemic have been put on hold as the Delta variant of the disease continues to drive up infections.At Monday’s 6pm press conference, Boris Johnson confirmed that the lifting of remaining coronavirus restrictions in England will be delayed by four weeks to 19 July.It was “sensible to wait just a little longer” and potentially until 19 July, he said, adding he was “confident” no further extensions of lockdown measures will be needed.As it stood, Boris Johnson’s roadmap was originally scheduled to end on 21 June when the last precautionary measures were due to be lifted.But the threat posed by the new strain – thought to be 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant – raised doubts about the wisdom of pressing ahead.When asked whether he could rule out extending this delay to the easing of lockdown, the prime minister said: “At a certain stage we’re going to have to learn to live with the virus and to manage it as best we can.”“At the end of that [four-week delay] … we do think that we will have built up a very considerable wall of immunity around the whole of the population.” More

  • in

    Cancer backlog after Covid threatens ‘devastating health crisis’, MPs warn

    Urgent action must be taken to address the backlog in cancer treatment after Covid and prevent a second “devastating” health crisis, MPs and medical experts have warned.Nearly 70 MPs, heads of medical colleges and leading oncologists are urging the government to deliver a new “radical” national plan to tackle the cancer backlog or risk “tens of thousands of needless cancer deaths”.The open letter addressed to the prime minister warns that “without urgent action we face a second devastating health crisis as the Covid wards empty and the cancer wards fill.”The letter has been signed by chairs of all-party parliamentary groups (APPG), former cabinet ministers and a former cancer minister, and calls on the PM to consider the seven recommendations put forward by the cancer community and cross-party MPs.The recommendations include the need to recognise the urgency of the backlog and deliver a new radical national plan, driven from ministerial level and backed by investment in equipment, technology, IT and workforce and to sweep away bureaucracy that restricts cancer care capacity. Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron, chair of the APPG for radiotherapy, said: “It feels like ministers and NHS leaders are hearing our words but still not accepting the magnitude of this Covid-caused cancer crisis. We keep hearing that ‘everything is in hand’ and that there are ‘encouraging signs’ but this flies in the face of warnings from frontline staff, patients and cancer experts.”He added: “This crisis can’t be solved by just exhorting the already exhausted staff to ‘work harder’.  And getting more patients to present is only part of the solution. We urgently need the prime minister to intervene and ensure we have a radical national plan backed with a real cash ‘super-boost’ to give cancer services the tools and capacity they need to catch up.”Professor Pat Price, a leading oncologist, said the cancer community was “pleading” with the PM to treat the issue as a national priority. “The entire cancer pathway needs urgently restoring throughout the country, staff are exhausted and we simply don’t have the capacity to catch up,” he said.“We need proper investment, backed by the political leadership to ensure that investment gets to where it is needed most. The prime minister has shown what can be done with the vaccine programme.  Now, it’s a national imperative that he works with us to do the same for cancer.”The Department for Health has been contacted for comment. More

  • in

    Delta variant: Ministers send extra support to Greater Manchester and Lancashire to tackle surge in cases

    Ministers have drafted in more help from the military and will provide extra testing and public health teams in parts of Greater Manchester and Lancashire after a surge in cases of the Delta coronavirus variant first identified in India.It comes as new internal NHS data shared with The Independent reveals a rise in hospital admissions in the region, with 13 new Covid-19 patients admitted to Manchester hospitals by 8am on Tuesday. The measures could help ministers decide whether to continue with the final end of social distancing rules, due to take place on 21 June.While a growing number of experts have expressed caution over the spread of the Delta variant, many Tory backbenchers are pushing for a full reopening of the economy. It was reported last night that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is willing to accept a delay of up to four weeks in the lockdown exit plan.Health secretary, Matt Hancock, said Tuesday’s new measures would include additional testing, as well as supervised in-school testing, and military support. He told MPs this approach had previously worked in south London and Bolton. Ministers have also extended their “minimise travel” advice to include Greater Manchester and Lancashire. And local directors of public health will be given discretion to reintroduce mandatory use of face coverings in communal areas in schools if they decide the measure is appropriate. But the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, called on ministers to go further and send more vaccines to the area.“We are not asking for any more vaccine here than our fair share. What we are asking for is the bringing forward of Greater Manchester’s supplies, so that we can run a surge vaccination programme over the next three weeks,” he said.He emphasised that the new system was “not a lockdown” but “advice”.Across England, the latest official data shows there were 879 Covid-19 patients in hospital, with a total of 66 new admissions in the past 24 hours to Tuesday. Across the northwest, there are 246 Covid-19 patients in hospital, with 163 across Greater Manchester.While admissions are rising, the number of hospital discharges – 101 in the past day – has meant the number of cases in hospital overall grew by just 19 in Tuesday’s figures.Mr Hancock announced the enhanced support as he told MPs the government faces a “challenging decision” over whether or not to lift remaining lockdown restrictions across England on 21 June.He also made an appeal to those living in Greater Manchester and Lancashire to get tested and to have a coronavirus vaccination as soon as they are eligible, “because that is our way out of this pandemic together”. As part of the government recommendations, those in areas affected by a rise in cases of the variant first identified in India are being urged to meet outside rather than inside where possible, to maintain social distancing and to minimise travel in and out of affected regions.The latest measures to try to halt the rise of the variant of coronavirus first identified in India will cover 10 per cent of England’s population.Official statistics released yesterday showed just a tiny number of those in hospital with the Delta variant have had two doses of the vaccine. The former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested that any delay to England’s roadmap to lift lockdown would only last a couple of weeks, because of the success of the vaccination programme.Mr Hancock told MPs: “We are providing a strengthened package of support, based on what’s happening in Bolton, to help Greater Manchester and Lancashire tackle the rise in the Delta variant that we are seeing there.“This includes rapid response teams, putting in extra testing, military support and supervised in-school testing.”“I want to encourage everyone in Manchester and Lancashire to get the tests on offer,” he added. “We know that this approach can work. We’ve seen it work in south London and in Bolton in stopping a rise in the number of cases.“This is the next stage of tackling the pandemic in Manchester and Lancashire, and of course it’s vital that people in these areas, as everywhere else, come forward and get the jab as soon as they are eligible because that is our way out of this pandemic together.”The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “We want to provide the package of support that has been effective in Bolton to a wider area … to tackle the cases of the Delta variant.” More

  • in

    The World Needs a People’s Vaccine

    A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that worries about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States are at their lowest level since it began. Only half of Americans are either “very worried” (15%) or “somewhat worried” (35%) about the virus, while the other half are “not very worried” (30%) or “not worried at all” (20%). But the news from around the world makes it clear that this pandemic is far from over, and a story from Vietnam highlights the nature of the danger. 

    Pandemic Family Life: The Struggles Behind Closed Doors

    READ MORE

    Vietnam is a COVID success story, with one of the lowest rates of infection and death in the world. Vietnam’s excellent community-based public health system prevented the coronavirus from spreading beyond isolated cases and localized outbreaks, without a nationwide lockdown. With a population of 98 million people, Vietnam has had only 8,983 confirmed cases and 53 deaths. However, more than half of Vietnam’s cases and deaths have come in the last two months, and three-quarters of the new cases have been infected with a new “hybrid” variant that combines the two mutations detected separately in the Alpha (UK) and Delta (India) variants.

    Vietnam is a canary in the pandemic coal mine. The way this new variant has spread so quickly in a country that has defeated every previous form of the virus suggests that this one is much more infectious.

    COVID-19 Variants

    This variant must surely also be spreading in other countries, where it will be harder to detect among thousands of daily cases, and will therefore be widespread by the time public health officials and governments respond to it. There may also be other highly infectious new variants spreading undetected among the millions of cases in Latin America and other parts of the world.

    Embed from Getty Images

    A new study published in The Lancet medical journal has found that the Alpha, Beta (South Africa) and Delta variants are all more resistant to existing vaccines than the original COVID-19 virus, and the Delta variant is still spreading in countries with aggressive vaccination programs, including the United Kingdom. 

    The Delta variant accounts for a two-month high in new cases in Britain and a new wave of infections in Portugal, just as developed countries ease restrictions before the summer vacation season, almost certainly opening the door to the next wave. The UK, which has a slightly higher vaccination rate than the United States, had planned a further relaxation of restrictions on June 21, but that is now in question.    

    China, Vietnam, New Zealand and other countries defeated the pandemic in its early stages by prioritizing public health over business interests. The US and Western Europe instead tried to strike a balance between public health and their neoliberal economic systems, breeding a monster that has now killed millions of people. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 6 to 8 million people have died, about twice as many as have been counted in official figures. 

    Vaccinating the World

    Now, the WHO is recommending that wealthier countries that have good supplies of doses postpone vaccinating healthy young people and instead prioritize sending vaccines to poorer countries where the virus is running wild. President Joe Biden has announced that the US is releasing 25 million doses from its stockpiles, most of which will be distributed through COVAX, the WHO’s global vaccine-sharing program, with another 55 million to follow by the end of June. But this is a tiny fraction of what is needed. 

    Biden has also agreed to waive patent rights on vaccines under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS rules, formally known as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. But that has so far been held up at the WTO by Canada and right-wing governments in the UK, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Japan and Colombia. People have taken to the streets in many countries to insist that a TRIPS Council meeting on June 8-9 must agree to waive patent monopolies.

    Since all the countries blocking the TRIPS waiver are US allies, this will be a critical test of the Biden administration’s promised international leadership and diplomacy. So far, Biden’s team has taken a back seat to dangerous saber-rattling against China and Russia, foot-dragging on the nuclear deal with Iran, and war-crime-fueling weapons peddling to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

    Ending international vaccine apartheid is not just a matter of altruism or even justice. It is a question of whether we will end this pandemic before vaccine-resistant, super-spreading and deadlier variants fuel even more toxic new waves. The only way humanity can win this struggle is to act collectively in our common interest.

    Embed from Getty Images

    Public Citizen has researched what it would take to vaccinate the world and concluded that it would cost only $25 billion — 3% of the annual US budget for weapons and war — to set up manufacturing plants and distribution hubs across the world and vaccinate all of humanity within a year. Forty-two progressives in Congress have signed a letter addressed to President Biden to urge him to fund such a plan.

    If the world can agree to make and distribute a people’s vaccine, it could be the silver lining in this dark cloud. The ability to act globally and collectively in the public interest is precisely what we need to solve so many of the most serious problems facing humanity. For example, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) warns that we are in the midst of a triple crisis of climate change, mass extinction and pollution. Our neoliberal political and economic system has not just failed to solve these problems. It actively works to undermine efforts to do so, granting people, corporations and countries that profit from destroying the natural world the freedom to do so without constraint. 

    Neoliberalism

    That is the very meaning of laissez-faire — to let the wealthy and powerful do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences for the rest of us or even for life on Earth. As economist John Maynard Keynes reputedly said in the 1930s, laissez-faire capitalism is the absurd idea that the worst people, for the worst reasons, will do what is best for us all. Neoliberalism is the reimposition of 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism, with all its injustices, inequality and oppression, on the people of the 21st century, prioritizing markets, profits and wealth over the common welfare of humanity and the natural world our lives depend on.     

    Berkeley and Princeton political theorist Sheldon Wolin called the US political system, which facilitates this neoliberal economic order, “inverted totalitarianism.” Like classical totalitarianism, it concentrates ever more wealth and power in the hands of a small ruling class, but instead of abolishing parliaments, elections and the superficial trappings of representative government as classical totalitarianism did, it simply coopts them as tools of plutocracy, which has proved to be a more marketable and sustainable strategy.

    But now that neoliberalism has wreaked its chaos for a generation, popular movements are rising up across the world to demand systemic change and to build new systems of politics and economics that can actually solve the huge problems that neoliberalism has produced. 

    In response to the 2019 uprising in Chile, its rulers were forced to agree to an election for a constitutional assembly, to draft a constitution to replace the one written during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, one of the vanguards of neoliberalism. That election has now taken place, and the ruling party of President Sebastian Pinera and other traditional parties won less than a third of the seats. So, the constitution will instead be written by a super-majority of citizens committed to radical reform and social, economic and political justice.

    .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
    .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
    .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
    .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
    order: 1;
    color: #ffffff;
    font-weight: normal;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
    right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
    .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

    In Iraq, which was also swept by a popular uprising in 2019, a new government seated in 2020 has launched an investigation to recover $150 billion in Iraqi oil revenues stolen and smuggled out of the country by the corrupt officials of previous governments. In 2003, former exiles flew into Iraq on the heels of the US-led invasion “with empty pockets to fill,” as a Baghdad taxi driver told a Western reporter at the time. While American forces and US-trained Iraqi death squads destroyed their country, they hunkered down in the Green Zone in Baghdad and controlled and looted Iraq’s oil revenues for the next 17 years. Now, maybe Iraq can recover the stolen money its people so desperately need and start using its oil wealth to rebuild that shattered country.

    In Bolivia, also in 2019, a US-backed coup overthrew its popular indigenous president, Evo Morales. But the people of Bolivia rose up in a general strike to demand a new election and Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party was restored to power. Now, Luis Arce, the economy minister under Morales, is Bolivia’s president.

    Around the world, we are witnessing what can happen when people rise up and act collectively for the common good. That is how we will solve the serious problems we face, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the climate crisis to the terminal danger of nuclear war. Humanity’s survival into the 22nd century and all our hopes for a bright future depend on building new political and economic systems that will simply and genuinely “do what is best for all of us.”

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • in

    Will lockdown be lifted on 21 June? Everything we know so far

    The UK government’s hopes of scrapping the final social restrictions imposed on the public to tackle the coronavirus pandemic appear to be fading fast as the Delta variant of the disease continues to drive up infections.As it stands, Boris Johnson’s roadmap ends on 21 June when the last precautionary measures are due to be lifted but the threat posed by the new strain – now thought to be 40 per cent more transmissible than the first – is raising doubts about the wisdom of pressing ahead.While there is significant pressure for a return to normality as the summer weather finally arrives and after more than 14 months of hardship, frustration and uncertainty, the prime minister has previously promised to be guided by “data, not dates” in his decision-making and, at present, the former is not looking good.In his latest comments on the question, health secretary Matt Hancock said on Sky News on Sunday: “It is too early to make a final decision. We’ll keep watching the data for another week or so and, critically, watching that link on the number of cases to the number of people who end up in hospital. “And it is absolutely true that the number of people ending up in hospital is broadly flat at the moment.”But the UK recorded 5,341 new infections on Sunday as the caseload continues to rise, plus four more deaths within 28 days of testing positive, bringing the total number of fatalities since the pandemic began to 127,840.The increase has been sufficient to cause NHS staff to come forward to warn that frontline workers in particular have been “broken” by the pandemic and are “close to burnout”.“Everyone in the NHS at the moment is kind of terrified,” said Dr Megan Smith, legal and policy officer for campaign group EveryDoctor.Dr Emily Bell, a GP from the northwest of England, added: “We know there’s still a lot of unclear messaging going on, and I think unfortunately people’s behaviour has been relaxing.” “And then the beaches are packed, nobody’s wearing a mask, there’s no social distancing, and you just want to weep.“The NHS is still in crisis and we cannot cope as it is. Unlocking poses a real threat to it just collapsing, and my biggest concern is patient safety.”The public has also expressed anxiety to The Independent in a new poll that found 65 per cent of people saying they were “worried” about dropping social distancing mandates. A number of experts have also sounded the alarm about the risk involved in pushing on with stage four of the easing process.Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the government and chair of the independent Sage group, told Sky on Monday morning: “There are 5,300 new cases of the disease per day in the United Kingdom and we’re up about 2,000 on last week.“Now we’ve been discussing whether or not we’re going into a serious third wave and I don’t think we can possibly wait any longer. This is the evidence of another wave appearing.”“I think there’s a significant chance that [the date] could change,” Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, told the same network last week.“We’re better off being cautious at this point and being able to progressively unlock ourselves than to overdo it and then end up having to lockdown fully all over again.”His comments followed those of Professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group counselling the government, who told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Bank Holiday Monday that the UK is now in the grip of an “early” third wave of Covid-19 infections spearheaded by the Delta variant.“There has been exponential growth in the number of the new cases and at least three-quarters of them are the new variant,” the University of Cambridge academic said.“Of course the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment – all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive, so the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.“It will probably take longer than earlier waves to emerge because of the fact that we do have quite high levels of vaccination in the population, so there may be a false sense of security for some time, and that’s our concern.”Prof Gupta pointed out that Mr Johnson’s roadmap was formulated before the existence of the variant was known and backed delaying the final easing by “a few weeks” to allow more people to be vaccinated against it.“If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay, so I think that’s the key thing,” he said.“People are not saying we should abandon the 21 June date altogether but just to delay it by a few weeks while we gather more intelligence and we can look at the trajectory in a clearer way.”A number of other leading experts have agreed that the current date for relaxation is inadvisable given the current evidence but, so far, none are advocating new lockdowns – either national or local to hotspots like the hardest-hit north west, Midlands and London.Instead, they are united in calling for stage four to be temporarily delayed and for the public to be patient one final time in order to avoid a fresh setback that could undo much of the good work this year’s successful vaccine rollout has achieved.However, indecision over the extent of the delay required is causing fresh exasperation in some quarters, with Professor Robert Dingwall of Nottingham Trent University complaining on Times Radio on Tuesday morning that the government’s critics “can’t even agree on what delay they’d like.” More

  • in

    UK Covid hospital admissions: Latest figures as concerns grow over lockdown easing

    The UK government’s hopes of bringing an end to the social restrictions imposed on the public since 23 March 2020 to tackle the coronavirus pandemic appear to be fading as the Delta variant of the disease continues to drive up infections across the country.As it stands, Boris Johnson’s roadmap ends on 21 June when the last precautionary measures are due to be lifted. But the threat posed by the new strain – now thought to be 40 per cent more transmissible than the first – is raising doubts about the wisdom of pressing ahead.Both NHS professionals and members of the public have expressed their anxiety about the prospect of ending restrictions, with a clear majority favouring the temporary prolonging of the status quo to allow for more people to get vaccinated against the virus. Health secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News on Sunday: “It is too early to make a final decision. We’ll keep watching the data for another week or so and, critically, watching that link on the number of cases to the number of people who end up in hospital.“And it is absolutely true that the number of people ending up in hospital is broadly flat at the moment.”With Mr Hancock making clear that hospital admissions will be a key determining factor in government decision-making, here’s a graph plotting the number of people who have received medical attention after contracting Covid since Mr Johnson’s announcement of the first national lockdown last spring, based on the very latest government data. As you can see, the graph is currently registering its first uptick in weeks, a worrying development that could represent a further setback to the dreams of millions desperate for a (relatively) normal summer. More