Fire up the boosters ... or risk a catastrophe

And amid delay to third doses:

AS autumn arrives, the picture on the Covid front looks troubled. Rates of infection remain high and hospitalisations and deaths from the virus are creeping upwards.

On one day this week, the total number of Covid fatalities hit 207, the first time the 200 barrier has been breached since March.

Against this backdrop, a key priority for the Government must be to avoid another lockdown. So soon after the return to normality this summer, reimposition of draconian controls would be a disaster, devastating the economy, wrecking businesses, costing the Treasury a fortune, undermining mental health and damaging education.

Nor is it likely the public would show the same levels of compliance as in the first lockdowns. Explosive unrest of the kind now afflicting Australia – where a heavy-handed crackdown has prompted widespread resistance – could be repeated here.

But there is an alternative to social restrictions. What Britain urgently needs is to give a renewed impetus to the vaccine programme by providing booster jabs to the adult population.

Without taking away any freedoms, such a policy would enhance public protection and form a powerful shield against the lethal spread of the disease.

Since it began last December, the vaccine programme has been a magnificent success. It is estimated to have saved more than 100,000 lives, cut hospitalisations and lessened the strain on the NHS.

But two problems have emerged recently. The first lies in Covid’s capacity for mutation, leading to more transmissible variants such as the Delta. The second is that, over time, the effectiveness of each jab wears off, even for people who have received two doses.

Last week the respected Zoe study, run by King’s College London, published a report that clearly spelt out this reality.

According to the study’s findings, the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine fell over six months from 87 to 74 per cent, while for the Aztra-Zeneca jab it dropped from 77 to 67 per cent.

Professor Tim Spector, who is in charge of the Zoe project, warns that in the worst-case scenario this winter, effectiveness could fall below 50 per cent for older and vulnerable people. ‘We urgently need to make plans for vaccine boosters,’ he says.

Given that the peak of the British vaccine programme was six months ago, it now time to act.

That lesson is graphically reinforced by the experience of Israel, over 80 per cent of whose population has been double-vaccinated, an even higher level than here. Yet during the summer, Israel saw an exponential rise in infections and hospitalisations.

Israel’s government responded with a massive programme of booster jabs, starting with the most vulnerable. The effect was immediate, with the growth in infections suddenly slowing. The latest Israeli data shows people over 60 who received a third dose are now half as likely to be hospitalised as those who are double-vaccinated.

That emphasises how imperative it is that we act now, without hesitation or delay.

In Britain, every week is crucial if we are to avoid a winter catastrophe. Some experts, like Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, have argued it was the delay in imposing the first lockdown in March 2020 that greatly worsened the Covid death toll.

Given the scientific evidence we now have, the same vacillation cannot be repeated over boosters, especially as the NHS already has contingency plans to administer 32million of them and is already offering them to 500,000 people with severely suppressed immune systems.

It is clear that, by inducing a surge in antibodies, boosters work. We have the vaccines. So why doesn’t the Government get on with the task? The answer is that ministers are awaiting a final recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which wants to collect more data before giving its approval.

PROFESSOR Anthony Harden of the JCVI said in a BBC interview: ‘What we don’t want is to boost people and then find we have a new variant and we can’t boost them again.’

That is all very well in theory, but the nation faces a serious practical problem right now. The only solution is for the Government to overcome the hesitancy and order that the booster programme proceeds.

Ministers like to say they are ‘following the science’ but in the end, this comes down to a political judgment about the urgent need to protect the public. Elected politicians are ultimately responsible for Covid policy.

Absolute certainty might be the goal of the scientists but it is rarely achievable in the political realm. The imperative of the moment demands a swift decision, otherwise I fear we risk another dreadful lockdown. Jeremy Hunt is chairman of the health and social care select committee and was health secretary from 2012 to 2018