His model also highlights the length of the winter ahead, with waves of infection hitting in the UK in spring 2022 in some scenarios. Mr Ward says the degree to which the protection provided by vaccines wane would prove crucial. so it could get very challenging,” he said. “For Covid alone I don’t think it will get as bad as last January, but it could approach April 2020 levels, and we know the NHS is under pressure. James Ward, a leading amateur modeller whose projections have been among the best over the past six months, also leans towards a positive outcome this winter. “Many healthcare systems have been stretched to breaking point, and some services - and healthcare workers - are actually broken,” he said. The population was also in “much worse health” after two years of restrictions, he noted. He said we should expect “flare ups” in communities where immunity remains low and warned that the lack of capacity in the NHS compared with other developed nations was “a real concern”. And each week that we don't have an explosion in cases is another week where essentially you are building your defence of immunisation… If anyone had said this was on offer a year ago, I would have happily taken it.”īut Prof Balloux warned that the coming winter in the UK could still be tough. “I think the UK’s numbers will be decreasing over the coming weeks. “I might say something like, it looks like the beginning of the end, at least in the UK and most of Europe and in the US”, he told The Telegraph on Thursday. Prof Francois Balloux, the director of the University College London Genetics Institute and a professor of computational biology, is quick to say he is not “doing a Lilico” and declaring the crisis over, but admits to being “overall, quite optimistic”. Who knows, Tyrolean “beer pong” may yet become a thing again. February half-term will witness a return of Britons to the Alps, where bookings are already hard to come by. There will be turkey and goose aplenty due to the brimming good health of farmers and triple jabbed HGV drivers. On this view, Christmas will once again be a jolly affair with all the relatives in attendance. Herd immunity has been reached and another “extended period” of hospitalisations and deaths is “no longer possible”. The most vocal proponents of this view, including the economist Andrew Lilico, believe that “in England at least, the coronavirus epidemic is now de facto at an end”. This continues even as more and more people venture back to work and average daily contacts more than double to return to their pre-pandemic levels. The considerable immunity built up in the population through natural infection and vaccination - already upwards of 90 per cent - will be topped up by the one-in-70 who currently have the virus, the vaccination of children aged 12 to 15 and booster shots for the over-50s.Īll those antibodies push R below one and cause the incidence of the virus to start shrinking exponentially, reducing hospital admissions and taking the strain off the NHS. In the best-case scenario, things continue pretty much as they are today, with everything open and people - slowly but surely - returning to life as normal. Here are their thoughts on the months ahead - the good, the bad and the ugly. We spoke to many of the country’s leading experts. On Saturday, the former prime minister Tony Blair has called on the Government to introduce vaccine passports now or "risk further lockdowns. So how might things pan out in practice over the next six to nine months? When push comes to shove, “the Government remains committed to taking whatever action is necessary to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed”. Ministers believe Plans A and B will be “sufficient to reverse a resurgence in autumn or winter”, but add that “the nature of the virus means it is not possible to give guarantees”. There is no official Plan C but it is, of course, another lockdown, or what the new plan refers to as “more harmful economic and social restrictions” only to be considered “as a last resort”. “In a Plan B scenario, the Government would issue clear guidance and communications to the public and businesses, setting out the steps they should take to manage the increased risks of the virus,” says the document. This would involve mask mandates, vaccine passports and the nation getting what amounts to a stiff talking to. Should that not prove adequate, Plan B would then be instigated “hard and early”. Plan A relies on vaccines and booster shots to hold the virus at bay. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister set out a two-part “Autumn and Winter Plan”. Perhaps it betrays the UK’s approach to fighting Covid-19, but the only real question we Britons are asking at the moment is this: will there be another lockdown this winter?
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