New lockdown will cause even more harm, warn experts
MORE than 30 health experts yesterday criticised ‘harmful’ plans to impose blanket lockdown measures in an open letter to Boris Johnson.
They argued that instead of nationwide restrictions, which have a devastating impact on the economy and public health, ministers should only impose ‘targeted measures’.
This would include a strategy to protect the most vulnerable Britons, including those in care homes.
It came only days after leading microbiologist Hugh Pennington called for ‘local remedies’ and branded a national lockdown ‘the wrong approach’.
The letter was addressed to the Prime Minister, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, urging them to ‘fundamentally reconsider the path forward’.
It drew attention to the knock-on health impacts of lockdown, such as delays in diagnosis, claiming this could cause an extra 60,000 deaths from cancer.
The authors included Professor Karol Sikora, consultant oncologist at the Unieconomic
‘Protect the most vulnerable’
versity of Buckingham, and Professor Carl Heneghan from Oxford University.
It was signed by 32 leading doctors and academics from a range of backgrounds, including intensive care consultant Dr Ron Daniels, head of the UK Sepsis Trust.
They argued that the Government’s strategy of suppressing the virus until there is a vaccine was ‘increasingly unfeasible’, and is ‘leading to significant harm across all age groups’.
The letter said: ‘Instead, more targeted measures that protect the most vulnerable from Covid, whilst not adversely impacting those not at risk, are more supportable. Given the high proportion of Covid deaths in care homes, these should be a priority.’
The experts argued that targeted measures must be the ‘logical cornerstone of our future strategy’.
It warned: ‘Blanket Covid policy interventions likely have large costs, because any adverse effects impact the entire population.’ It said the impact on cancer is ‘especially acute’, with Cancer Research UK warning of two million delayed or missed cancer treatments and tests.
The letter also pointed to the devastating
consequences of measures such as curfews on pubs and restaurants.
The authors highlighted that younger healthy adults have only a tiny mortality risk, with 89 per cent of deaths in the over65s. ‘In light of the above, our strategy should therefore target interventions to protect those most at risk,’ they said.
‘For example, Germany’s case fatality rate among patients over 70 is the same as most European countries. However, its effective reduction in deaths is based around a successful strategy of limiting infections in those older than 70.’
It claimed there was little evidence to suggest that blanket nationwide lockdowns were effective at reducing deaths from Covid, urging caution.
At the weekend, Aberdeen University’s Professor Pennington said: ‘A national lockdown is not what is needed to (fix) what is a local problem. Local remedies have to be applied, even if they are tough.’
However, a different letter – also written yesterday by a separate group of health experts – backed nationwide restrictions.
It warned that restarting the economy during the pandemic could be ‘detrimental in the long term’.
Published in the British Medical Journal, it backed current efforts to ‘suppress the virus across the entire population, rather than adopt a policy of segmentation or shielding the vulnerable until “herd immunity” has developed’.
It was signed by experts including Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford, and Professor Martin McKee, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The letter warned cutting off vulnerable people would be ‘practically impossible’.