Weddings and barmitzvahs back by the summer, says top immunologist
V WEDDINGS and barmitzvahs could return this summer — though older community members should remain cautious, one of the UK’s leading immunologists has told the JC.
Professor Danny Altmann - who is part of the Immunology Task Force for SAGE, the top scientific panel advising the government on the pandemic - said he does “feel less bleak about the future than some” because the vaccines that are being deployed give us a “degree of headroom before protection is completely lost” against more worrying variants.
He told the JC: “We can see from data that vaccination will drive cases and transmission down. I think that there’s no excuse really for keeping full social distancing when we are immune and vaccinated.”
He cautioned, however, that “in terms of things like communal worship, while I’m quite impressed by the efficacy of the vaccines in older people, this is the group where there will be most variability in the quality of the response. So there may be a degree of caution for a while until we see whether transmission is genuinely bottoming out.”
Because of that, “it may take a while for life to look and feel completely normal. There may simply be some adaptations whereby the old normal never completely returns.”
It emerged last week that synagogues were preparing to open in time for Purim – but the professor, who, together with his wife, heads a lab at the Hammersmith Hospital Campus of Imperial College London, warned that hesitancy among some to be given the vaccine would need to be tackled before full communal life could return.
Prof Altmann said he has tried to reach out to the strictly Orthodox communities on this subject.
He said: “I was disturbed by the data I saw from the Charedi community, here and in Israel about herd immunity.
“This is a de facto version of the original debate about whether to ‘let rip’ and build herd immunity: there’s no escaping the horrific reality that this immunity comes at a cost of massively exacerbated hospitalisations and deaths - a crying shame.”
He added that any group said to have achieved a degree of immunity should not be complacent because “if there are variants we will need a higher level of herd immunity”.
How worrying are these variants? “The South Africa variant does worry me: the E484K mutation really dampens vaccine-induced immunity. Luckily the vaccines are so amazing that there’s a degree of headroom before protection is completely lost. I worry that we seem to perseverate just on closing borders to imported viruses. We have home-grown versions already here - we so need to raise our game on test and trace to keep on top of them.”
Prof Altmann and his team have also been focusing on long Covid and what can be done about it. His experience of working on viruses in Brazil, Africa and South East Asia (including Zika and Chikungunya) has given him a head start on the problem.
“Health systems in these places have been devastated due to the need for long-term care for chronic side effects from such viruses. This is what worries me about long Covid – that people will need ongoing help. That’s why my focus is on vaccinating and monitoring vaccinations in the future, as well as keeping up genetic monitoring.”
A biochemist by training, Prof Altmann’s love affair with immunology began during his PhD at Bristol University in the mid 1980s. “At the time the Weizmann Institute was at the vanguard of immunology and I opted to do my post-doctoral training there,” he said. “From there I worked at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Medical Research Council.
‘For decades I have had a passion for immune responses, across a global health landscape, and so, like many of my colleagues, when a call to arms came with Covid-19, we were champing at the bit to get our teeth into it.”
Jews and immunology have a long history according to Prof Altmann: “Jewish scientists have always been very prominent in immunology you could fill several books writing about all the great thinkers.
“People allude to some kind of atavistic yearning or skillset for Talmudic dissection that fits well for this kind of science!”
Prof Altmann is the secular, atheist son of Holocaust survivors from Germany. Growing up in northwest London, he attended Mathilda Marks School and JFS.
At home, Jewish life was paramount and all-encompassing but without much religious observance. However, every Friday night he would go to Belsize Square Synagogue,
We’re not only here for the person who needs us most – whether due to a learning disability, wellbeing or mental health issue – we are here for everyone whose life is impacted by the situation.
and after the service the family tradition was to head straight to the former Cosmo restaurant on the Finchley Road for weiner schnitzel and a good reisling.
Talk of restaurant dinners begs the question: when can we get back to our lives again?
“If you ask me where we are heading out of this. We won’t kiss goodbye to Covid.
“Will it be mild and come back each year? Will we learn to live with a certain number of deaths a year?
“It’s a harsh, unforgiving virus.” There’s no room for anyone to gloat.”
I do feel less bleak about the future than some’
THE FATHER of a talented Oxford University student who died of an overdose has hit out at the drugs policy of his son’s former college.
Daniel Mervis — a JFS alumni who was a world record -holding powerlifter as a teenager— died aged 23 having developed a cocaine addiction while at St John’s College.
He began his first term at the university in October 2014 after his entrance exam results ranked among the top five per cent of St John’s College admissions. The physics student took time out in his first year due to his battle with addiction and rejoined a year later, but left again to focus on his treatment.
In September 2019, he started at University College London, having remained drugs-free for eight months. But he relapsed and died of a mixed drug overdose in October 2019.
Last week, in an unprecedented move, a coroner directly criticised the drugs policy at the college.
In her report, she stated that “it was clear that Daniel was using drugs whilst at St John’s College”.
The report added a “concern… that there is an apparent conflict between St John’s stated policy to deal with utmost severity with those students who misuse or supply drugs, and the apparent support those students who suffer with drug addiction are offered.
“This conflict may discourage such students to seek help for their addiction out of fear of the consequences, either legal or disciplinary.”
Daniel’s father, Hilton Mervis, a lawyer from north London, said the college’s drugs policy was “inadequate”
— but said that this was not about trying to blame the university for his son’s death, but about seeking to “remedy an obviously defective drugs policy in order to save others”.
He said that he hoped to foster a “more supportive and open environment for those suffering with addiction and drug misuse. This means the breaking of taboos, education, and care rather than discipline to those struggling with drug abuse. I am not trying to stop people using drugs at university, of course that will not happen. But because this is the reality, we need more support and education for those addicted and struggling with drug misuse.”
He added: “Daniel struggled so bravely with fighting his addiction, taking months out of his life to attend rehabs around the world, along with so many other young people whose stories may never be told.
“He is such a loving and caring person who valued every sentient being as a compassionate vegan. Daniel would have wanted his passing to be the catalyst to save one life or enable one person to avoid the misery of addiction.”
In her report, coroner Professor Fiona Wilcox said Daniel was found in the flat of a drug dealer and that he could not be resuscitated. She said he had suffered from anxiety, depression and ADHD and misused drugs in his teenage years before developing an addiction. She added that Oxford University does not have an “overarching policy agreed by all colleges”.
On the “apparent conflict” she found in St John’s College’s policy of dealing with drug misuse, she wrote: “There is no suggestion that the college should condone illegality, but since drug addiction is an illness, then support by the college may assist students with these issues to access appropriate care, perhaps early on in their addiction, and thus help prevent deaths.”
The college was given 56 days to outline ways to address the issue by the coroner in her report. In a statement to several media outlets, it said it was “greatly shocked and saddened at the news of Mr Mervis’ death. The college has responded to all enquiries from the coroner’s office but is surprised at the publication of this report, as we had been informed by the coroner’s office that Oxford and St John’s were outside of the sequence of events that led to and caused the death, and so outside of the remit of the coroner’s inquiry.
“Comprehensive support provisions are available to all students who may benefit from help with drugs or other medical and welfare problems and are set out in the student handbook.
“As part of the student induction procedure, the senior dean and welfare dean see all new undergraduates in freshers’ week and specifically refer them to the support provisions and details in the handbook.
“Such comprehensive provision was prevalent at the time Daniel Mervis was an undergraduate.”
Mr Mervis’ father said: “Perhaps when they have had time to reflect, they will appreciate that the one paragraph in the handbook is not adequate, and as the coroner pointed out is ambiguous and confusing.”
I am seeking to remedy an obviously defective policy’