Please, enough gloom, the worst is behind us

It is said that politicians, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. Certainly as Britain emerges from the pandemic, the Government appears intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Yesterday, the Department of Health announced that the UK had offered vaccination to all over-50s and vulnerable people – a group that encompasses 99 per cent of the deaths.

Yet Boris Johnson went to great lengths to warn that the vaccine programme had not achieved very much at all, insisting “the bulk of the work in reducing the disease has been done by the lockdown”.

Clearly this cannot be true. Latest figures show that the death rate for the over-60s has fallen dramatically since the rollout and is now close to that for the under-60s.

On Jan 23 the mortality rate for the over-60s was 56.5 in 100,000 while for the under-60s it was 1.3 in 100,000. Today, the death rate for the over-60s is just 0.9 in 100,000 and under one for the under-60s.

The link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths has also been broken, something never achieved by the first lockdown.

On top of this, the data are even more positive than we are being told.

Take death registrations. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics published latest figures showing that the number of deaths registered in England and Wales was 19 per cent below the five-year average in the week ending April 2.

That is 1,844 fewer deaths than would normally be expected at this time of year, and 319 fewer Covid deaths from the previous week – a drop of around 44 per cent.

Yet of the 400 deaths that mentioned coronavirus on the death certificate, just 77 per cent of people actually died from Covid. Nearly one quarter died “with” the disease, but not “from” it.

Undoubtedly the figures are slightly skewed because of the Easter bank holiday effect, which will see some deaths registered later than usual, but a glance at the five-year average shows that no other Easter bank holiday has shown such a large dip in recent years.

A report from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, said that excess death rates had been significantly lower than the five-year average for several weeks, which was particularly apparent in vaccinated groups.

Cobus Daneel, chairman of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee, said: “Lockdown restrictions and the vaccination programme have had a significant impact on deaths, and mortality in the past four weeks has been below normal levels for the time of year.

“Deaths have fallen fastest in the oldest age groups, consistent with the vaccination programme targeting those age groups first.”

The daily death count is also better than we realise because the Government announces the figures by “reported date of death” rather than “actual date of death”, meaning deaths from days or even weeks ago can end up muddled into the daily figure.

Although daily reported deaths in the UK have seen figures of up to 60 in April, the actual daily death rate has remained below 30. England has seen daily cases drop to as low as nine per day.

According to Oxford University, the number of people with an active coronavirus infection in hospital is also way lower than government figures show.

NHS England data show that there were 1,154 admissions from the community up to April 4, and by April 5 in England the daily count of confirmed Covid patients in hospital at 8am was 2,680.

Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford, said: “Making an assumption that the duration of infectiousness is a maximum of seven days then less than half of the patients currently in hospital are infectious.

“The number is important, as it provides information on active infection as opposed to including those with complications or those waiting for discharge.

“All the data are highly reassuring. The effect of vaccines is that those above 60 have now ended up with a risk that is similar to those below 60.

“There is becoming a case over the next couple of weeks to bring forward the reopening of hospitality but that is offset with caution around big events. I think this overcautiousness can be overcome by using a data-driven approach.

“The issue is, as we go about our daily lives, there will be a slight increase in cases, but the key is not to panic.”

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the Government is terrified to tell the public just how well the country is doing in controlling the pandemic.

In some ways it is understandable. As the brakes come off, and restrictions are lifted, there is a chance that infections will rebound. Yet they have not so far.

Predictions that schools would cause the R-number to soar above one have proved baseless and government scientists now admit that a third wave is unlikely before the autumn.

Even Nicola Sturgeon has accelerated the lifting of restrictions because of the huge progress in reducing numbers.

England is seeing similar progress, yet still has two months to go before full release. Surely it is now time to give Britain credit for what it has achieved and trust the population to be sensible with its hard-won freedoms.

The light at the end of the tunnel is now clearly in sight. Let’s not make the rest of the journey more gloomy than it needs to be.