COVID-19: HOW ABOUT BRINGING ENGLAND'S 21 JUNE RE-OPENING FORWARD?

Today, Monday, PM Johnson announced that a whole host of restrictions would be relaxed next Monday 17 May.  This was the earliest date in the Government's road map.  This relaxation is because of the rapidly improved data for COVID-19 infections. hospitalisations and deaths.

As the data is that good, how about bringing full relaxation plans forward from 21 June?

Professor Chris Whitty, the UK's Chief Medical Adviser. said today that there is an expectation that infections will rise after 17 May.  That would especially be amongst younger adults who have not yet been vaccinated, and teenage children who won't be vaccinated, who can then pass the infection to more vulnerable family members.  Any prediction for how much infections will rise is only an estimate.  We need to see by how much in reality before making any further changes.

Businesses need to be given a good week's confirmed notice to re-open, after analysing the data after the relaxation.  It takes a couple of weeks for infections to result in hospitalisations, and a while longer until death.  So the affect of relaxation on the data takes three weeks or more to see clearly, plus a few days to analyse.  Hence the five weeks between each set of relaxations:

What makes each set of relaxations risky is the "variants of concern".  These are potentially more transmissible, more nasty and/or not suppressed by the various vaccines:

• The five variants already identified, as below
• Any new variants, either arising in UK or more likely brought in from abroad
  

As shown by Prof Whitty today:

The variant first identified in India, B1.617.2, is new and as yet little understood.  Prof Whitty said the concern is that it is more transmissible than the 'Kent' variant B1.1.7, which itself quickly became dominant in the UK.  Incidence of this India variant has more than doubled in the last week, with the risk that it will continue to grow exponentially.  This is given so many people remain unvaccinated, and at around 95% effective, the vaccines still don't protect some 1 in 20.  Amongst the vulnerable, that means around 1 in 10 could catch COVID-19, of which a proportion will die.   Further details about the growth of this Indian variant are here

LongCOVID can then affect a sizeable proportion of others who have been infected, of all ages.  One estimate being 1 in 20, including people who had no symptoms initially.  Potentially tens of thousands of people, with their lives blighted to a greater or lesser extent, and putting enormous strain on the NHS.

So a further surge in infections must be avoided.  It is therefore vital to see what affects next Monday's relaxations will have on infections, in total and for each of the variants of concern.  Four weeks is the minimum time that will take.  Add a week's notice to re-open, and that means a total of five weeks is the minimum gap. 

So no, it is not sensible to bring the 21 June relaxations forward.  Indeed full relaxation is not guaranteed. Fingers crossed though!