Expert warning over ‘large’ autumn wave
THERE is still potential for a “large” wave of Covid-19 in the autumn which could see 1,000 people admitted to hospital each day, an expert has warned.
Professor Neil Ferguson, infectious disease modeller and epidemiologist from Imperial College London, said current case rates are “sobering” heading into September when mixing will increase as schools return.
However, he added it is “unlikely” that any surge in hospital admissions will lead to levels of deaths seen earlier this year thanks to the vaccination programme.
He said a surge in cases will not be stopped through lockdowns, but instead population immunity.
His comments came after rules were eased so fully-vaccinated adults will no longer have to isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.
Professor Ferguson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that case numbers have “plateaued” at around 30,000 per day, adding: “That’s a slightly sobering situation to be in coming into September.
“Our contact rates are about half of normal levels, and in school holidays children don’t have that many contacts.
“And we’ll be reopening schools, people will be going back to offices in September.
“So we still have the potential of quite a large wave of infection in September, October.”
As of 9am on Sunday, there had been a further 26,750 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the Government said.
He added: “What we can be confident in is vaccination is protecting people against the most severe disease - so it’s very unlikely we’ll see levels of deaths, for instance, comparable with what we saw this January.
“The real question is more important, frankly, than the numbers of cases... is what does that do to NHS demand and admissions to hospitals? And in the worst-case scenarios we could be getting, probably not up to January levels, but still at levels of well over 1,000 admissions per day potentially.
“Which does stress the health system and we already have very long backlogs in the health system - any stress on it is challenging.
“But there is a big difference - we’re not going to be stopping this way with lockdown, what it will stop with is the acquisition immunity of the population and so will naturally decline and that’s the point where we start living with Covid, where it becomes an endemic disease.”
Last week, Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, suggested the concept of herd immunity is “not a possibility” due to the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus.
He referred to the idea as “mythical” and warned that a vaccination programme should not be built around the idea of achieving it.
Asked about the remarks, Prof Ferguson said: “People quote that 92% of adults have antibodies in the moment, but only about half of those are probably protected against infection so there’s a lot of transmission going on between vaccinated people.
“That said, vaccination still is having a downward pressure on transmission - it does provide some protection.”