COVID Q&A

When will peak deaths be, and will jab halt new variant?

Q When are we going to see the peak of the new wave of Covid infections? A LAST week, Covid deaths broke the 1,000-a-day mark. Similarly, daily positive cases are spiralling past 70,000. It has become a familiar pattern, with the numbers surging day after day.

According to virus expert Professor James Naismith at the University of Oxford, it’s likely that things will get worse before they get better.

It takes between five and ten days from infection before Covid symptoms begin and a patient seeks a test. It then takes about ten days for symptoms to become so severe they require hospital treatment.

Typically, if a patient is severely ill, they will deteriorate over two weeks before dying. So a peak in infections is followed by a peak in hospital admissions about ten days later.

In London, which has already been seeing some of the highest numbers of hospital cases, the peak of new infections was at Christmas, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

Professor Naismith said that in London, and other areas which were put into tier 4 earliest to control infection, deaths are expected to peak over the next seven days.

He added: ‘In the rest of the country, the infection peak has probably passed, and did so when the national lockdown was imposed [on January 5], so peak deaths can be expected in three to four weeks’ time.’ Q Does the vaccine protect against the new variant?

A

On Friday, researchers from Pfizer, the US-based manufacturer of one of two vaccines used in the UK, published the results of a study proving the jab provides protection against one of the new, mutated variants of Covid19. Blood samples from 20 vaccinated patients showed the antibodies triggered by the jab successfully attacked viral cells from the new ‘Kent’ variant.

The vaccine has not yet been tested against the South African variant, but immunologist Professor Deborah Dunn-Walters, from the University of Surrey, said: ‘There is no evidence that the mutations tested have made any difference to antibody ability. The technology used to make the vaccines means they can be changed quite quickly if necessary.’

Q Are more young people getting sick with Covid now?

A Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: ‘The new variant appears to affect all ages and, as yet, we are not seeing any greater severity among children and young people.’

Dr Liz Whittaker, consultant paediatrician at St Mary’s Hospital, London, added: ‘There are lots of children with Covid-positive tests, but only small numbers with severe disease. I continue to worry for my elders, not my kids.’