Experts warn of ‘really rough’ winter and say vaccine is no silver bullet

A leading public health expert has warned the next four months will be “really rough” in dealing with the spread of coronavirus, and said governments should be concentrating on getting through winter “without a lot of death and a lot of restrictions”.

Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, also told MPS the prospect of a vaccine was over-hyped and would not be “a silver bullet” in tackling the virus.

Addressing the Westminster All-party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus (APPG), she said the UK Government’s approach to lockdowns would not work unless the time was used to ensure proper test, trace and isolate systems were running.

Pointing to poor er countries around the world, she said she could not understand why they had better systems in place than the UK.

The MPS were also told by social psychology Prof ess or Stephen Reich er of St Andrews University, that the public would begin to rebel against restrictions as a result of“a lack of clarity and equality” around the reasons for lockdowns. He said a vaccine would be useless if there was no confidence in it as a result of a lack of trust in the UK Government.

Asked by chair of the APPG Layla Moran if people should pin their hopes on a vaccine or if it was being “over-hyped”, Prof Sridhar said: “I think so – I don’t think a vaccine will be a silver bullet, and even already they’re trying to dampen down expectations of who will receive it, and if we do get a vaccine there are questions over effectiveness, but it will be a valuable tool.

"The way I see it November to February is going to be really rough and it’s going to be a really bad winter, and I think we need to prepare about how do we get through this without a lot of death and a lot of restrictions in place – how do we get through that period?”

Prof Reicher said: “There is a little bit of representation that the vaccine is like the cavalry riding over the hill to save us, so we don’t have to save ourselves, but it’s not.

"A vaccine stops nothing – it’s people getting vaccinated that stops something, and already the polling shows about 50 per cent of people are dubious and a lot of that has to do with lack of trust which is a huge issue we need to address. The loss of trust in the UK Government is catastrophic.

"Yes, some people are still adhering to rules despite a lack of trust. However, when it comes to a vaccine, you need to have trust in it as being safe and for your own good, so we have to be addressing that now.”

However, Prof Sridhar said she believed things would improve in the spring next year.

“I do think from March it will get better because we understand much more about transmission, testing will get much better, treatments will save people from dying … and yes we will have a vaccine.

“There will be more clarity by March and we’ll understand the most optimal way of dealing with this.”

Yesterday it emerged that young and healthy test subjects will be infected with Covid-19 from January as part of trials to develop a vaccine.

Up to 90 young and healthy people between the ages of 18 and 30 will be recruited to take part in the trials in London.

They will be exposed to the virus in a controlled environment, and will then be carefully monitored to work out the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause Covid-19 but not serious illness.

It is hoped the trials will start in January, with results expected by May 2021, pending approval from regulato - ry bodies and ethics committees. The next phase will be to test vaccines.

After the initial study at the Royal Free Hospital in Lon - don the volunteers, who will be paid for their involvement, will be tracked for a year.

The UK Government is investing £33.6 million to back the studies in partnership with Imperial College London, HVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “We are doing everything we can to fight coronavirus, including backing our best and brightest scientists and researchers in their hunt for a safe and effective vaccine.

“The funding announced today for these ground-breaking but carefully controlled studies marks an important next step in building on our understanding of the virus and accelerating the development of our most promising vaccines which will ultimately help in beginning our return to normal life.”

Lead researcher on the human challenge study Dr Chris Chiu, from Imperial College London, said: “Our number one priority is the safety of the volunteers. No study is completely risk-free, but the Human Challenge Programme partners will be working hard to ensure we make the risks as low as we possibly can.

“The UK’S experience and expertise in human challenge trials, as well as in wider Covid-19 science, will help us tackle the pandemic, benefiting people in the UK and worldwide.”

Kate Bingham, chair of the UK Government’ s V accine Task force, said :“This research will improve understanding of the virus, the biology of the disease, the signs that a person is protected from infection or developing the disease, the vaccine candidates, and will help in making decisions about research, that it is carried out safely and based on upto - date evidence.

“There is much we can learn in terms of immunity, the length of vaccine protection, and reinfection.”

The news comes after the UK Government’ s chief scientific adviser said it is “unlikely” that ac or on avirus vaccine will stop the disease completely. Sir Patrick Val lance said that only one disease – smallpox – had ever been completely eradicated.