Covid wave ‘will be nothing like last winter’ as PM urges get the jab

A WINTER Covid wave is likely to be milder than last year, even without Plan B, government scientists have said, as they warned that restrictions may not work as well as in previous waves.

Modelling released yesterday shows that unless there is both a rapid increase in transmission rates coupled with the repeated waning of protection from the vaccine, hospital admissions will be nowhere near the highs of last January.

The team at Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) concluded that if vaccine protection does not wane much further than already observed, then admission rates “are unlikely to get significantly higher than those currently seen”.

Warwick University modelling shows that even if behaviour returns to pre-pandemic norms quickly, and waning of immunity is high, a winter wave would spike at around 1,500 admissions a day , well below the 4,000 admissions a day seen at the January peak.

Similarly, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculates that even if infections pass 100,000 a day, admissions would peak at around 800 a day, and deaths at around 150, far fewer than the 1,300 seen in the winter wave.

Only a more virulent new variant could push the trajectory into something resembling last winter, the scien- tists believe.

The Daily Telegraph understands that government scientists have already advised that Plan B should be enacted but ministers are sticking with the plan to “live with the virus” rather than attempting to suppress it further.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) is meeting less frequently as the Government attempts to move from a crisis footing to managing the virus as an endemic disease.

Admissions are now the main focus for ministers, with scientific sources saying the Government is less concerned about case numbers, and more focused on ensuring the NHS can cope.

Yesterday Boris Johnson said: “Our autumn and winter plan always predicted cases would rise around now and we’re seeing that in the numbers. The message for today is for all over-50s, think about getting your booster jabs.”

Chancellor Rishi Sunak told The Times that winter would be “challenging” but the vaccine and booster jabs have put Britain in a “very different place” to where it was a year ago. He added: “There’s this enormous wave of protection, and that changes things. That’s our first line of defence.

“There’s a range of options that are available, and those are not options that involve lockdowns or very significant economic restrictions.”

The papers published yesterday also reveal that scientists are unsure whether restrictions proposed in the Government’s Plan B, such as mandabut tory mask wearing and working from home, would have the same impact as in previous waves.

The Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) said: “Behaviour is likely to be different from what it was when the measures were originally put in place… testing and isolation rules have been relaxed since the end of the roadmap.

“One-time effects that [reduced] or increased transmission could not be repeated, such as the Euro 2020 football championship and the isolation of a large proportion of the active population during the so-called ‘pingdemic.’”

The more infectious Delta variant is also now the dominant strain, which could alter the impact of interventions, the SPI-B report said.

Scientists said booster vaccine uptake was crucial in determining whether Plan B would be needed, and urged the Government to back greater use of home testing and give support to people needing to self isolate.

They said it would be possible to delay Plan B until case numbers were doubling every two weeks.

Currently case rates have only risen by about one fifth in the past fortnight, and now stand at about 50,000 a day.

some experts now think it is time to let the virus spread through the population so that it can become endemic.

“That is how severe disease will be reduced in the long-term, and how the pandemic will ultimately become just another cause of the common cold,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.

“As the [Covid] infection is becoming endemic, pretty much everyone, whether vaccinated or not, will be getting repeated infections from now [on].

“Most epidemiologists doubt we will see anything like last winter.”

In its latest paper, Warwick University researchers also admitted their roadmap modelling had been wrong.

“We have not seen the large outbreaks that were thought feasible in the Step 4 scenarios,” the modellers said.

Hospitalisations from Covid are 3.5 times lower than they were at the same stage of the winter wave in January.

Official data from the Office for National Statistics show that in week 21 of the second wave in the last week of January, the rate of hospitalisations was 25.7 per 100,000 people. In contrast, at week 21 of the third wave for the week ending October 17, the figure was 7.2 per 100,00 people – 3.5 times lower.

‘The pandemic will ultimately become just another cause of the common cold’