PREVALENT

‘1 in 3 could have already had Covid’

More than one in three people in the Canterbury district could have already had coronavirus, scientists have estimated.

This week the total confirmed positive Covid tests across our city, Herne Bay and Whitstable topped 8,000. But experts from the University of Kent say the true figure for the district could in fact be close to 60,000.

Prof Martin Michaelis and Dr Mark Wass, from the uni’s School of Biosciences, say they are able to make a “reasonable estimation” using the Covid infection-fatality rate. They calculate that between 18,733 and 56,200 residents have been infected across the Canterbury district, accounting for between 11% and 34% of the total population. But the bioscientists have issued a stark warning that the high number of cases does not mean the county is set to benefit from any sort of herd immunity.

“Although an increasing number of people have become infected, this does

not mean that the pandemic would come to a natural end any time soon,” they told the Gazette.

“Recent data from Brazil show that in Manaus the outbreak is still ongoing although more than three quarters of the population have already been infected. “Moreover, not everybody who has been infected is also protected.

“There is an increasing number of re-infections, some of which are more severe than the original ones, and antibodies, which normally indicate immunity, have been shown to rapidly decline in many individuals after Covid-19 infection.

“The only thing that we do know is that the more people become infected, the more people are going to die. “If, like in Manaus, 75% of the population become infected, about 460,000 people are going to die in the UK at an infection-fatality-rate of 0.9%, which has been previously determined for this country.”

Prof Michaelis and Dr Wass say the more Covid spreads, the more virus mutations are created - such as the new, highly-infectious strain which originated in Kent. They say if more people develop antibodies, this makes it more likely there will be a “selection pressure” that favours the formation of variants that can bypass pre-existing immunity.

The scientists add: “Therefore, we need to suppress Covid-19 transmission as much as possible.”

Prof Michaelis and Dr Wass argue that countries which have suffered fewer deaths have also endured less damage to their economies. They point out that Taiwan has reported just seven deaths out of population of 23.5 million residents. So far, 281 people from Canterbury have died out of a population of about 165,000.

“Very low Covid-19 numbers make it possible to control outbreaks locally without far-reaching, national restrictions, which then enables the sustainable reopening of the economy,” they add. “Hence, we need to do everything that we can now to get the Covid-19 numbers as low as possible. “Only following the rules in the current lockdown and avoiding all contacts that are not absolutely necessary will, together with the roll-out of vaccines and increased testing capacities, get us to a kind of normal and give us our lives back.

“As long as the numbers are as high as they currently are, we will have to endure severe restrictions of our freedoms.” Latest figures show that Canterbury’s infection rate now stands at 565 weekly cases per 100,000 people - the lowest since the turn of the year. This compares to a national rate of 630.

The number of patients with the virus in east Kent’s hospitals has also fallen from 460 to 397 in the space of eight days.

Prof Martin Michaelis (left) and Dr Mark Wass