COVID-19: WHAT DID THE SCIENTISTS SAY ON 21 SEPTEMBER?

WHAT DID THE SCIENTIFIC ADVISERS AND PM JOHNSON SAY IN COMMON?

It's worth picking up on a few key points that both PM Johnson and the Scientific Advisers said:

• The exponential increase in new infections followed inevitably by hospitalisations and death
• Action is needed now.  But whether enough?
• Dispelling the idea that younger people should get on with their lives whilst older people take greater precautions.

Indeed what was the intersection between what the scientists were saying and what PM Johnson said in his national address?:

ON YOUNGER PEOPLE

On the very important issue of younger people, the idea that they should get on with life as if COVID-19 wasn't happening was dispelled:

Sir Patrick Vallance, CSA

• Sir Patrick Vallance said "In Spain and France we have seen an increase in the numbers of cases. It started with younger people in their twenties and spread gradually to older ages as well...as the disease spreads, as it spreads across age groups, we expect to see increase in hospitalisations and unfortunately those increase in hospitalisations will lead to an increase in deaths."

Professor Chris Whitty, CMA

• Professor Chris Whitty added "If I as an individual increase my risk, I increase the risk to everyone around me and then everyone who’s a contact of theirs, and sooner or later the chain will meet people who are vulnerable or elderly or have a long term problem from COVID. So you cannot in an epidemic just take your own risk. Unfortunately, you’re taking a risk on behalf of everybody else."

• PM Johnson said: "To those who say we don’t need this stuff, and we should leave people to take their own risks, I say these risks are not our own.  The tragic reality of having COVID is that your mild cough can be someone else’s death knell.  And as for the suggestion that we should simply lock up the elderly and the vulnerable – with all the suffering that would entail – I must tell you that this is just not realistic, because if you let the virus rip through the rest of the population it would inevitably find its way through to the elderly as well, and in much greater numbers. That’s why we need to suppress the virus now, and as for that minority who may continue to flout the rules, we will enforce those rules with tougher penalties and fines of up to £10,000.

OTHER POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT

A couple of other specific points from the scientists worth highlighting:

• From Sir Patrick Vallance:
• He added at current growth rates, this would lead to "something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day. 50,000 cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200 plus deaths per day"

• "...something under eight per cent of the population have been infected as we measure the antibodies, so about eight per cent, so 3 million or so people, may have been infected and have antibodies. It means that the vast majority of us are not protected in any way and are susceptible to this disease." though this does exclude the possibility of cross-immunity

• From Professor Chris Whitty:
• "So seasonal flu normally in the UK would on average a year would kill around 7,000 people a year tragically, and in a bad flu year, as there was for example about three years ago, it might kill upward of 20,000 a year. This virus is more virulent than flu."  As we've seen, excess deaths were around 53,000 up until early September, with a similar number of COVID-related death certificates.