UK could possibly be virus-free by August, declares ex-chief of vaccine taskforce
THE UK will have a population protected from Covid this summer, the departing chief of the UK’s vaccine taskforce said.
Clive Dix, who took over the role in December and stepped down last week, said it was his belief there would be no circulating virus in the UK by August.
He also told The Daily Telegraph: “We’ll have probably protected the population from all the variants that are known.
“We’ll be safe over the coming winter.”
More than 50 million doses of a Covid vaccine have been distributed in the UK, 16.7 million of which are second doses, according to Government figures.
In Scotland, 2,883,384 people have received their first jag and 1,450,798 have received their second vaccination.
Earlier this week, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said scientists are looking at a range of options for an autumn booster vaccination campaign to protect against a third wave of coronavirus.
This could include new jags to protect against variants or mixing the types of injections given.
But Mr Dix told the paper he felt this could be pushed back into the new year.
He said: “We may decide that we need to boost the immune response, and we’ve got the vaccine to do that. Whether we’ll need to or not, I would think probably not, but we might still do it in case.
“I really don’t think it should be autumn. We should be thinking about boosting in maybe January or February, because the immune response will be strong.”
Figures released yesterday showed Scotland had recorded 224 new cases of coronavirus but no deaths in the preceding 24 hours.
The death toll under this daily measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – remains at 7,661.
The daily test positivity rate was 1.2 per cent, the same as the previous day, according to figures released by the Scottish Government on Saturday.
Moray has the highest rate of cases in the country, with 96 per 100,000 people in the seven days to May 5, significantly higher than the rest of the country.
A mobile testing unit arrived in Elgin on Friday as part of moves to reduce the spread of the virus and asymptomatic people are being encouraged to take regular lateral flow tests.
East Ayrshire has the secondhighest number of cases in Scotland, with 36.9 per 100,000 followed by Glasgow at 34.7 per 100,000 people in the seven days to May 5.
Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said cases in Scotland, where indoor hospitality has already reopened, are at similar levels seen in early September 2020.
Commenting on the risks of indoor and outdoor dining, she told Times Radio that the risk outdoors “are really very low” and at least 20 times less than indoor hospitality.
She said: “Indoors is more risky, where households are mixing – now that doesn’t mean that hospitality is more risky as a venue than a number of other indoor environments.
“But we’re in a very good position now, the vaccines are assisting us and it is the right time to gradually open up. I do support doing that in stages.”
On the subject of international travel, Professor Bauld advised a cautious approach following the Government’s announcement of quarantine-free countries.
She said: “We’ve had more cases of Covid-19 last week globally than we’ve had at any point of the pandemic.
“I know people are disappointed that they can’t go to France or Spain, but at the moment if I could point to one area that I’d be most anxious about it would be variants and importation of infection”
Professor Bauld added: “I think that’s the territory we have to be most cautious of and move most slowly.”