Limit control measures to most at risk, says adviser

FUTURE Covid control measures should only apply to the most vulnerable, a member of Sage has said.

At the beginning of the pandemic, those with chronic illnesses and the elderly were asked to shield at home as the nation went into lockdown.

Prof Andrew Hayward, of University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, and a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), suggested that different rules for people in different categories could return.

He told the BBC’S Radio 4 Today programme: “I think, generally, as we move into a sort of endemic rather than a pandemic situation then the potential harm that the virus can cause at the population level is much less.

“You can’t really justify such broad, population-wide control measures, and we tend to target the control measures more to those who are most vulnerable.

“And so, I think, not only in testing but in all sorts of forms of control, as we move into a situation where we’re coming to live with this virus forever then we target the measures to the most vulnerable rather than having the more disruptive measures.”

Germany is to abolish free testing for asymptomatic people from Oct 11, and Prof Hayward believes the UK could follow suit.

On Tuesday, Prof Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group, said herd immunity would not be possible owing to the delta variant, adding that we still need to work out what “living with Covid” meant in practice as he predicted “winter endemics” of the virus, as with flu.