Covid headlines on October 19: Cases rising in 90% of UK

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The UK has some of the highest coronavirus rates in Western Europe, with case numbers currently at the same level as the January 2021 peak – when the UK was in a full lockdown. Almost 90 percent of all local areas across the UK are witnessing a rise in Covid cases.

Prof Neil Ferguson, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) from Imperial College London, said Covid hospitalisations are doubling every five weeks as the public’s immunity begins to fall.

Professor Ferguson was one of the key architects of the first UK-wide lockdown in March 2020.

He said: “I don’t think we’re looking at another lockdown… the worst case here are demands on the NHS… it’s very unlikely we’ll see anything like the levels of deaths we saw last year, for instance.

“Coming into the winter, there may be a Plan B which needs to be implemented, which involves some rolling back of measures, but I doubt that we’ll ever get close to lockdown we were in January of this year.”

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He added: “I don’t think it’s a reason to panic right now but I would certainly like to see vaccination booster doses accelerated, vaccination for teenagers accelerated.”

As it currently stands, just 3.7 million of the 8.5 million who are eligible for their third dose of a Covid vaccine have received one.

At the peak of England’s Covid vaccine rollout more than 500,000 doses were being administered a day, but the picture is very different now, with just 99,000 booster jabs reported in England yesterday.

“We were very successful in getting vaccination rolled out early and we know that gradually immunity wanes over time after you’ve had that second dose, so how early we were means we are a bit more vulnerable.

“Second, we relied more on the AstraZeneca vaccine and, while that protects very well against very severe outcomes of Covid, it protects slightly less well than Pfizer against infection and transmission, particularly in the face of the Delta variant.”

“And finally, we just sit behind a few other countries, not dramatically, but we’re no longer in the top rank of European countries in terms of overall vaccination coverage, particularly vaccinating teenagers.

“Overall coverage rates here are considerably lower, for instance, than in Spain, Portugal and Denmark.”

Those aged over 50 can get boosters six months after their second dose – but more than a third of eligible over-80s are yet to have their top-up jab.

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What is ‘plan B’?

Plan B could see the reintroduction of mandatory face masks in indoor public places and on public transport.

These rules are still in place in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It could also reintroduce the advice to work from home and mandatory social distancing in shops and hospitality venues.

Vaccine passports could be enforced in England after plans to use them domestically were axed earlier this year.

Scotland has already started implementing vaccine passports this week.

Which areas have the highest Covid rates?

Ipswich in Suffolk has the highest rate in the UK, with 1,162 new cases in the seven days to October 14 – the equivalent of 854.5 per 100,000 people.

Wellingborough in Northamptonshire took second place, up from 738.0 to 817.9, a total of 655 new cases.

Torfaen in Wales revealed the third-highest rate, up from 687.5 to 814.1, with 772 new Covid cases reported.

Nationally, there were an alarming 49,156 new cases recorded on Monday this week – the highest number recorded since mid-July.

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