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In an interview with Robert Peston for ITV News, Professor John Edmunds – Government Member Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) – warned that coronavirus cases are “increasing exponentially.”
Professor Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, said that while we all continue to socially distance ourselves much more than we were before the arrival of the virus, we have not “reached the optimal point “that allows a more normal economic activity and a simultaneous control of the spread of the virus.
Professor Edmunds said that fall will be a challenge, because the virus reproduction rate or R rate is higher one – when schools and universities are reopening.
He raised the perspective of not only more local closings but also of the renewed national restrictions on our freedoms, because the opening of schools and universities would have “an epidemiological effect” everywhere.
“He didn’t want us to relax measures so much that we couldn’t safely open schools without the breeding number dropping significantly above 1. And we are already above 1 and have opened schools. So this is a risky period. “.
He added: “The epidemic keeps increasing and then we have Christmas. And that’s very difficult. What is Christmas? Well, it’s getting together with your family very close. Restaurants and pubs and things like that. And it’s all high risk. And it’s all indoors. Indoors make a difference. “
He continued: “We have been lucky with the weather, and it has changed.”
In an extensive interview about the pandemic and its aftermath, Professor Edmunds told ITV News political editor Robert Peston that visiting people in their homes “is quite risky.”
“You are there for quite a long time. It is impossible to socially distance yourself with family members, things like that,” he said.
“That is now having an effect. And we can see that the epidemic is taking off again. So I don’t think we’ve reached that sweet spot where we have been able to control the epidemic and allow the economy to return to a certain level.” a kind of normality. I don’t think we’ve made it. “
On the return of schools in the UK, the scientist said: “I am quite concerned that schools have just returned, cases are increasing exponentially now. They are increasing exponentially now, from a relatively low level. But they are increasing.”
“Schools are back. Universities are high-risk. They’ll be back in the next two weeks. And the government is trying to get us to get back to work and the subway and buy our Pret a Manger sandwich, and things like that.
“That will have an epidemiological effect,” he told ITV News.
“There is a certain degree of caution. We haven’t gone back to what we were doing before. One of the things I do is we measure people’s contact behavior. And it hasn’t gotten back anywhere from what it used to be before March. But it’s going back and it does carry a risk. “
With local closures in place in various areas of the UK, Professor Edmunds was asked about the possibility of more of them coming into effect.
He told Robert Peston: “Local closure is a vague term. We will certainly see more measures. I hope we can do it locally. But I don’t think that’s a guarantee.”
“Many of these measures that we are taking now, such as opening schools and universities, are going to have an effect on the whole country. Many towns and cities have a university or a higher education center. And every town has a school. And that will have a an epidemiological effect throughout the country. “
The scientist spoke of his fears of balancing easing blocking restrictions with reducing breeding numbers.
“My fear for the last few months […] He didn’t want us to loosen the measures so much that we couldn’t safely open schools without the breeding number dropping significantly above 1. And we are already above 1 and have opened schools.
He described the moment in which we find ourselves as “a period of risk.”
