Why Independence Day threatens to be a major disaster in Britain

Next Monday the time has come: then almost all COVID-19 measures in the United Kingdom will be completed. But it remains to be seen whether July 19, aka Independence Day, will go down in history as all Britons awaited liberation. Experts describe Boris Johnson’s decision as particularly alarming. Their models quickly predict up to 200,000 infections and between 200 and 400 deaths per day. how?

The UK faces over 2 million infections, which is a surprise to the healthcare sector and because infections mainly affect non-vaccinated youth in the UK, they could last over a generation with chronic ill health. take the risk of being burdened.

“It is irresponsible – and clearly alarming – that the government has decided to go ahead with plans to lift the remaining Covid-19 restrictions on July 19,” said Chand Nagpaul, chairman of the board of the British Medical Association. He pointed out that a significant portion of the UK population was still not fully vaccinated and lifting the measures would “tighten its grip” to put “unsettling pressure” on the healthcare system.

Warnings from the government’s scientific advisers suggest an “exit wave” could result in more than 200 deaths and thousands of hospitalizations a day, and models from the Scientific Epidemic Influenza Group (SPI-M) on Modeling Show an average estimate of about 400 deaths per day. .

The number of cases will continue to double every two weeks

In the last week alone, there were about 194,000 new cases of Kovid-19 in England alone, which is again 35 percent more than the week before. At the time of writing, 52 per cent of the UK population had been fully vaccinated. Perhaps another 20 percent have a dose of the vaccine or some immunity from a previous COVID infection. If this level of population immunity were sufficient to contain the epidemic in addition to public health measures, the cases would have been reduced. But they do anything. The number of cases will continue to rise, doubling every two weeks, until the population’s immunity is sufficiently high.

With millions still lacking full vaccination or protection from previous infections, it is inevitable that much of that immunity will come from new infections rather than vaccinations.

Boris’s two arguments

Doctor. The head of Public Health England, Susan Hopkins, estimated the number of cases would double before the peak, possibly more than 200,000 cases per day in six weeks. Even the health minister, Sajid Javid, believes that there will be over 100,000 cases in a day (which is almost twice). This could mean an additional 2 million Britons will be infected before the country returns to the low levels seen in early May. Meanwhile, it has leaked that the government is already anticipating a fourth wave this fall due to the return of school, cold weather and declining vaccine effectiveness.

Prime Minister Johnson cited two main arguments for further easing. The first is that more than 90 percent of those at highest risk have been fully vaccinated, greatly weakening the link between new infections and hospitalizations. Another is that it is better to have widespread infection now than in the winter when the virus spreads more easily and care is burdened anyway.

“Moral emptiness and epistemological absurdity”

However, experts are fueling both the arguments. In a letter to the Lancet last week, more than 100 scientists explained why allowing large-scale infections this summer is a very bad idea. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation’s health emergency programme, called the UK strategy “the moral void and epidemiological absurdity”.

For starters, while they are seeing far fewer hospital admissions in the UK than they would be without a vaccine, hospital admissions are still increasing rapidly. With two or three more doublings, the country could have more than 2,000 admissions a day by mid-August – a significant burden on a health care system that is already under tremendous pressure, with some hospitals canceling elective surgeries and delaying cancer treatment. The UK still has a backlog of 5 million patients yet to recover.

Risk of passing a whole generation to a long-term illness and helping to mutate

Second, infections are associated with a high burden of long-lived covids. The Office for National Statistics estimates that around 1 million people, including 33,000 children, are currently living with COVID in the UK. 385,000 Britons have been experiencing symptoms for more than a year and more than 600,000 say they still suffer from their infections in their daily lives. In the UK, they are at risk of burdening a generation with chronic ill health, with the infection mainly affecting uninfected young people. Both the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the chief executive of the NHS, the national health system, have expressed serious concern about the potential for hundreds of thousands of new cases of COVID-19 in the long run in the coming months.

In addition, experts say that every new infection represents an opportunity for further mutation of the virus. And any mutation that might better infect a vaccinated individual would have a huge selection advantage. The delta version effect is a perfect example of this.

For many, Independence Day is anything but a liberation

Experts also point out that Independence Day is anything but liberation for many at this time. Those living with health conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID will have to crawl into their shell for fear of contamination. Because they are no longer safe with low infection rates and measures like wearing masks and physical distancing. Since vaccinated people can and do transmit the virus as well, many of their friends and relatives will also limit their activities to protect loved ones. Ergo: For many people, the lifting of Covid rules will limit their freedom rather than allow it.

Scientists also show that immunity from vaccination is stronger than immunity from infection, especially against new forms. By the fall, the British could give two doses of the vaccine to anyone over the age of 12, to protect as many people as possible from being vaccinated.

The argument that delaying now will only lead to more infections later in the winter ignores three things: protection for millions more people (including teens) against vaccination; Ability for vulnerable adults to receive booster shots in the fall; And, importantly, the ability to overcome additional winter infection risks by continuing to take some simple measures.

(JV DH)

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