A new government scientific report suggest that as Covid restrictions are eased this will trigger a new wave of the virus across England, but it will be less severe than previously seen.
Also a new pandemic could be created if a new and dangerous variant arrives in the UK which could “double” or even “treble” the size of the next pandemic, if it were to completely evade vaccine immunity, government scientists warn.
The report was a summary of modelling done by teams at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Warwick University, who have advised government officials throughout the Covid crisis.
These are the worst case scenarios which were presented by SPI-M who are a sub group of the government’s scientific advisors, Sage.
More deaths and infections are inevitable as the Prime Minister is irreversibly unlocking England with social distancing being relaxed and the economy is reopening, but Sage claim it will not be as bad as it was in from April 2020 to January this year.
However the report was originally written, based on the assumption that the situation across the country is approximately the same as now.
Unfortunately this means the report did not take into account the potential spread of a new highly infectious variant such as the Indian mutant strain which has hit Bolton and some areas in London.
The report which was given to SAGE last Wednesday reads, “Modelling presented in these central scenarios is more optimistic than those in SPI-M’s previous Roadmap modelling. ‘This is primarily due to recent evidence that vaccines significantly reduce onward transmission from people who have been vaccinated but nevertheless become infected then symptomatic.
“This suggests that if baseline policies to reduce transmission are kept in place at the end of the Roadmap, behaviour does not return to pre-pandemic levels, and vaccine roll out progresses, there is an opportunity to keep the next resurgence very small.”
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