Ministers are being pressured to explain what contingency plans exist to deal with this future covid version Which avoids current vaccines, amid warnings from scientific advisors that such results could set back the fight against the pandemic by a year or more.
Recent papers prepared by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have suggested that the arrival of a vaccine-surviving variant is a “realistic possibility”. Sage continues work on supported new vaccines that reduce infection and transmission more than current jabs, building more vaccine-production facilities in the UK and laboratory-based studies to predict the development of variants.
With the arrival of a new variant seen as one of the main threats that could once again intensify the crisis, leading scientific figures stressed the risks. “This was clearly something that planners and scientists should take very seriously because it will take us a long way,” said Prof Graham Medley, a SEZ member and a leader of the government’s COVID modeling group.
“This is no different from what was planned in the midst of a pandemic – a newer version that was able to overcome immunity would essentially be a new virus,” he said. “The advantage would be that we know we can make vaccines against this virus – and relatively quickly. The disadvantage is that we will be back in the same state we were in a year ago, depending on whether a What was the impact of current immunity against the new variant. Hopefully, development is slow, so that new variants emerge that are only marginally deferred, rather than a huge leap.” Dr. Mark of Imperial College’s COVID-19 response team Baguelin and a member of the government’s SPI-M modeling group said to stop its imports Variants “Concerns with moderate to high immune-rescuing properties will be significant, as these could lead to future waves orders of magnitude larger than those experienced so far”.
“It is unlikely that such a new virus evades complete immunity from previous infections or vaccines,” he said. “Some immunity must remain at least for the most serious consequences such as death or hospitalization. We will be able to update current vaccines to include the emerging strain.
“But doing so will take months and means we may need to reimpose restrictions if there was a significant public health risk. The quantum of restrictions will be a political decision and should be in proportion to how much the virus will survive current vaccines. “
it comes with a further easing of restrictions In England on Monday, fully vaccinated people and under-18s will no longer be required to legally self-isolate if they come into close contact with anyone with Covid. They will be advised, but will not be forced to do a PCR test instead. Daily Covid cases are hovering around 30,000. The latest figures since August 13 showed that 32,700 more people had tested positive and another 100 deaths were reported.
Meanwhile, all 16- and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first doses of the vaccine over the next week to give them some protection before returning to schools in September. Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged older teenagers not to delay. “Get your jobs as soon as possible so we can safely live with this virus and enjoy our freedom by giving ourselves, our families and our community the protection they need,” he said.
Dominic Cummings, a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson, has already called on the government to publish a “variant escape vaccine contingency plan” and suggested lawmakers should explore ways to force ministers to do the same. One scientist said on condition of anonymity that he would like to see the publication of the National Risk Assessment related to COVID-19 contingency plans.
Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Munira Wilson is backing the move. “It is important that people have confidence in Boris Johnson’s COVID strategy and trust him not to repeat the same mistakes of the past 18 months,” she said. “By refusing to self-isolate, breaking its own rules and committing mistakes that cost lives, the government has lost public confidence. Transparency is the only way to win back that trust.”
Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, said: “It makes a lot of sense to be prepared. Scotland is setting up its own standing committee on the pandemic. It will be interesting to see what turns out to be at the UK level.”
“In the long term, we need a systematic investigation into what went wrong (and right) so we are prepared and also so that we can make systemic changes to protect ourselves. Epidemic is like the barium meal that has hit many in our society. The loopholes have been exposed. We can no longer pretend we don’t know about them. This has been a deafening wake-up call. Let’s make sure we don’t hit the snooze button.”
Government sources said Public Health England and others were monitoring the situation through rapid surveillance and genomic sequencing Why virus? A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said the vaccination program had built a “wall of defence.”
“We are committed to protecting the progress of vaccine rollouts and our world-leading genomics capabilities are at the forefront of global efforts to stay ahead of variants, with more than half a million samples genome-sequenced to date,” he said. They said.
Official figures show the UK recorded 93 new Covid-related deaths and 29,520 new cases yesterday. “Data from Public Health England shows that two doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are over 90% effective against hospitalization from the delta variant, which is the dominant strain. UK.”