Economy faces new pingdemic (if gloom squad get their way)

Ministers should return to rules that sparked the ‘pingdemic’ to keep Covid cases down, government scientists suggest.

in a controversial move, modellers for the Government’s sage advisory group advised a revival of the system that forced all close contacts of confirmed cases to self-isolate – even if they were double-jabbed.

they insisted that re-introducing the rules could help prevent a surge over autumn and winter. Without such measures, they said the number of hospitalisations could soar as high as 7,000 a day.

But last night former tory leader sir iain Duncan smith, said that the rules – if implemented – would devastate the economy by creating ‘chaos’ in the workplace. ‘Here we go again, Project Fear being unleashed by the scientists as they try to push the Government into another lockdown,’ he said.

‘this despite figures from the national Audit Office that fewer than 0.5 per cent of those that have died have had two vaccines. this shows the vaccines work.

‘the pingdemic will create chaos in the workplace and become a back door into another lockdown.’

in the summer, Britain was hit with a surge in people testing positive for Covid and reporting close contacts – meaning they had to self-isolate for ten days. this caused havoc in workplaces and was dubbed the ‘pingdemic’.

Later, the Government said that people would not need to self-isolate if they had been double-jabbed for two weeks. this solved the pingdemic problem – but with

Covid hospitalisations rising, scientists say that the restrictions may need to be reintroduced.

Documents published on tuesday show the Government’s scientific advisors urged ministers to consider bringing in extra restrictions soon – or risk the number of people being hospitalised with Covid rising to between 2,000 and 7,000 a day next month. this top figure – based on a scenario where the r-rate rises from 1 to 1.5 – far surpasses the winter peak of 4,309 hospitalisations on January 11.

scientists from the Government’s sPi-M-O group – which provides

modelling for sage – said they expected cases to rise in the coming months thanks to the end of the school summer holidays and workers’ return to the office.

they proposed a ‘basket of measures’ to keep the epidemic under control. the document said: ‘if enacted early enough, a relatively light set of measures could likely be sufficient to curb sustained but slow growth. As well as encouraging home working, more lighttouch measures could include clear messaging that recommends people acting cautiously, more widespread testing, a return to requiring all contacts of cases to isolate, and more mask-wearing.’

Yesterday, a further 30,597 coronavirus cases and 201 deaths were reported by the Government.