COVID Q&A
Are summer holidays cancelled, and could there be a third wave?
Q Is it safe for me to book my summer holiday?
A On Thursday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned: ‘People shouldn’t be booking holidays right now.’
This seems to run counter to the more upbeat predictions of Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has repeatedly talked of a ‘great British summer’ and on Wednesday admitted he had already booked a holiday in Cornwall.
The truth is, many scientists say there is a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted to allow for any sort of holiday. Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and an infectious diseases expert, said it was ‘not sensible’ to consider lifting restrictions until cases had fallen below 10,000 in the whole of the UK – 75 times less than the current number, and a number the country hasn’t been at since March 2020.
Others say things could change sooner. Professor Paul Hunter, a public health expert from the University of East Anglia, said the majority of restrictions could be lifted when the most vulnerable people have been vaccinated, expected to be by April.
Measures such as vaccine passports, giving those who have had the jab the freedom to travel internationally, could also make summer holidays more likely. Israel and Greece have already said they plan to allow travel of vaccinated people between the two nations this summer, and Mr Shapps last week confirmed vaccine passports were ‘on the way’ for Britons.
Q Can the new Bristol variant reinfect you even if you’ve had the vaccine?
A On Wednesday, epidemiologist and Sage member Professor John Edmunds said the new Bristol variant may be able to reinfect people who have already been infected or been vaccinated.
The variant, a new mutated version of the Kent variant which caused cases to spike across the country in December and January, has been reported more than 50 times now. Changes to the virus which scientists have observed suggest it might be able to evade the body’s immune-system response, or even the response of a vaccine. Prof Edmunds said: ‘It may be able to infect people who were previously infected, or have been previously vaccinated. That’s the worry with that particular virus.’
In areas where the variant has been found, the Government has implemented ‘surge-testing’, mass-testing whole postcodes to quickly identify potential positives and isolate them.
But while many are concerned, other scientists are quick to point out that the vaccines are still expected to do their primary job of protecting from serious illness.
Dr David Matthews, virologist at the University of Bristol, said: ‘As far as we can tell, none of the viruses that are emerging can do the thing that you dread, which is that it can both evade the vaccine and still put people in hospital.
‘That’s really the only thing we need to worry about.’
Q Could there be a third wave of Covid-19?
A The short answer: yes. While the current rate of the vaccine rollout has been promising, leading experts say releasing Covid restrictions too soon, or not managing to stop infections rising again, could lead to a huge surge in deaths as cases would inevitably spike again. Experts on the Government’s SPI-M advisory group said only a gradual easing of the rules would limit another rise in cases and that, even then, deaths could increase again by the autumn.
SPI-M chairman Professor Graham Medley said: ‘Vaccination offers a way out and does reduce the impact of infection, but it doesn’t remove it completely. So case numbers are still important because they represent the risk of having to go back into some kind of national measures.’
To keep cases at a manageable level, which many experts say should be fewer than 1,000 new cases a day, restrictions such as the Rule of Six and face masks could continue until 2022.
Professor Tim Spector, epidemiologist at King’s College London, said: ‘I can’t see us having massive weddings with people coming from all over the world. I think for the next few years, those days are gone.’