THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR KAROL SIKORA

CMO of Rutherford Cancer Centres and Former Director of WHO Cancer Programme

SOCIAL media’s voice of calm Karol Sikora has been signed up by the Daily Express. Readers can now enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times that has won him hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity.

IT IS difficult to know where to turn with the news at the moment, how can anybody possibly keep up?

Leak after leak, briefing after briefing, detail after denial – trying to decipher the truth is impossible. I give up trying sometimes.

When Covid numbers were increasing dramatically, it was all we heard about and that is quite right.

However, what I find frustrating is that when the various statistics are at their lowest for months there is just so much silence.

Daily UK deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test are now at extremely low levels.

The number is now regularly below 20 a day, my thoughts go out to those families affected.

Really encouragingly the Zoe app is recording symptomatic new cases at the lowest levels since the pandemic began – fewer than 1,000 new cases a day and falling.

Easing

This has been a reliable lead indicator in the past, so it’s looking good.

This easing of lockdown is fundamentally different to the others. More than 46 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, with 33 million people receiving the first dose and 12.5 million with their second.

With considerable residual immunity from past infection and also T-cell immunity, the number of people susceptible to severe disease from this virus is becoming very small indeed.

Looking at the daily number of reported cases is not nearly as important as it once was because of the vaccine rollout, but even those numbers are hovering around 2,000 and slowly declining.

Of course we have to be cautious about new variants and carefully monitor any developments, but we can’t let that fear hold us in lockdown for ever, the costs are just too great.