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The idea that Covid variants can be prevented from entering the country is “unrealistic,” and Covid will eventually have to be handled similarly to severe seasonal viruses like the flu, said Professor Chris Whitty.
Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, England’s chief medical adviser said that the relaxation of Covid restrictions will likely result in the R number rising above 1 and the risk of variants taking hold and spread out on the rise.
The more cases that have been imported, the faster it will happen. As a result, Whitty said, border policies focus on countries with more cases, or more cases of particular variants, than the United Kingdom.
“The UK is a net exporter of [the Kent] Variant B117, so it is understandable that other countries are putting their border measures against us to stop that. We are a net importer of other variants that are a bit more worrisome from a vaccine point of view. That’s really what drives a lot of politics, when it’s rational, except that border policy isn’t always completely rational, “he said.
Questions and answers
What does the coronavirus ‘R’ number mean?
R, or the ‘effective reproduction number’, is a way of rating the ability to spread a disease. It is the average number of people to whom an infected person will transmit the virus. For an R of any value greater than 1, an epidemic will grow exponentially. Anything below 1 and an outbreak will disappear, eventually.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the estimated R for the coronavirus was between 2 and 3, higher than the value for seasonal flu, but lower than for measles. That means that each person would pass it on to between two and three people on average, before recovering or dying, and each of those people would pass it on to two or three other people, causing the total number of cases to increase over time. weather. .
However, the reproduction number is not fixed. It depends on the biology of the virus; people’s behavior, such as social distancing; and the immunity of a population. A country may see regional variations in its R number, depending on local factors such as population density and transportation patterns.
Hannah devlin Science correspondent
Whitty said that most experts believed that Covid was not going to go away and that it would eventually have to be handled in a similar way to the flu. In a bad year, the flu can kill between 20,000 and 25,000 people. “It is not a flu, it is a completely different disease, but what I mean is that here there is a very dangerous seasonal disease that kills thousands of people every year and society has chosen a particular way to avoid it,” he said.
While Whitty noted that factors such as variants and population density were important, he cautioned against trying to explain how Covid had affected different countries by focusing on just one or two factors, noting that Germany now faces a difficult situation despite its Previous success in tackling Covid is largely attributed to its diagnostic capabilities.
“Actually, it is usually a great combination of factors, some of which are under our control, many of which are not. And it’s more coincidence than I think people are willing to accept, “he said.
Whitty said new vaccine technologies mean it has become easier and faster to adjust vaccines, which will be important in addressing new Covid variants, and said that within two years there will likely be a broad portfolio of vaccines available. .
He said that at present the main effort by companies was to increase the supply of vaccines and there was less capacity to respond to new variants, while it was not clear whether current vaccines offer a “fair degree” of protection against serious disease and death. even if they don’t. they generate high levels of neutralizing antibodies.
“What we have to do is find a balance that really maintains [Covid] at a low level, it minimizes deaths as best we can, but in a way that the population tolerates and does all the heavy lifting we can through medical countermeasures, “he said.
