A somber and subdued Christmas
Experts warn against easing virus curbs during the holiday even as vaccination campaigns take off
A cold and perhaps lonely Christmas holiday looms large for much of the world due to pandemic restrictions and experts warning against easing up on the rules.
For only the second time in 100 years, two of Britain’s leading medical journals have written a joint editorial, warning against proposals for a fiveday relaxation of COVID-19 regulations during the Christmas period.
“We are publishing it because we believe the government is about to blunder into another major error that will cost many lives,” said Health Service Journal editor Alastair McLellan and British Medical Journal’s editorin-chief Fiona Godlee.
Their comments come as London and many surrounding areas move from Tier 2 of restrictions to Tier 3, as the result of a significant increase in infections. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson was to go ahead with plans to ease coronavirus restrictions over Christmas. Britain had more than 1,888,000 confirmed cases and nearly 65,000 coronavirus-related deaths, according to official figures released on Dec 16.
“Members of the public can and should mitigate the impact of the third wave by being as careful as possible over the next few months,” the joint editorial said. “But many will see the lifting of restrictions over Christmas as permission to drop their guard.”
Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, said “mixing at Christmas is a terrible idea”.
British scientists are trying to establish whether the rapid spread in southern England of a new variant of the novel coronavirus is linked to key mutations they have detected in the strain, they said on Dec 15.
The mutations include changes to the important “spike” protein that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus uses to infect human cells, a group of scientists tracking the genetics of the virus said, but it is not yet clear whether these are making it more infectious.
Rowland Cobbold, an associate professor from the University of Queensland, Australia, said “the SARS-Cov-2 virus has been mutating” since it was first detected late last year.
“The differences in the strains between the UK, Europe and America is very small but enough to differentiate them,” he said.
Any virus mutation could be more virulent or less. It could be more transmissible or less transmissible. “What we (scientists) do is track the more virulent,” said Cobbold, who is an expert in zoonotic diseases.
Doctor Jeremy Farrar, director of the UK pharmaceutical company Wellcome, was quoted by the Science Media Centre in Australia as saying that “there is no room for complacency”.
“We have to remain humble and be prepared to adapt and respond to new and continued challenges as we move into 2021. This pandemic is not over,” he said.
According to data from the World Health Organization, the world had more than 71.92 million confirmed COVID-19 cases by Dec 16, with about 1.62 million deaths. The United States has started injections for medical personnel as the numbers of new cases and deaths in the country remain alarming.
As governments seek to find solutions to delivery of vaccines, many in the West are keeping their restrictions during and beyond the Christmas holiday.
Germany recorded 910 coronavirus fatalities in 24 hours by Dec 16, the most since the pandemic began, as a strict shutdown designed to stem a surge in infections comes into force. The total number of cases rose to 1.38 million.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that the country faces a new peak in COVID-19 infections next month, suggesting that the tougher restrictions will remain in place beyond January. Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.
Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea also face rising new cases. India’s national tally reached 9,932,547 on Dec 16 and the death toll surpassed 144,000.
Elsewhere, Brazil’s health ministry announced the official launch of the national COVID-19 vaccination plan. The country on Dec 15 reported 964 deaths from the pandemic over a 24-hour period, taking the nationwide death toll to 182,799. The total caseload was more than 6,970,000.