This morning, the news that Boris Johnson is likely to announce four week extension of our current lockdown restrictions hit social media hard. Almost immediately, #ImDone began trending following a tweet from pub landlord Adam Brooks questioning why stage four of easing lockdown could not go ahead.
‘Hospitalisations far better than March prediction,’ he tweeted. ‘Vaccine uptake and roll out far exceeds their predictions. You CANNOT defend this delay. #Imdone #EnoughIsEnough #HospitalitySOS.’
His feelings clearly echo many, with some on social media organising an anti-lockdown protest later this month in an effort to force the government’s hand in easing lockdown. ‘If vaccinations are working, and hospitalisations lower than they were in March, why does lockdown need to be extended?’ they will ask.
Well, we’re here to explain exactly why – according to the experts.
To put it simply, the rise in coronavirus cases because of the Delta variant is the main cause of concern in lifting lockdown completely. Some argue that cases rising is irrelevant as long as hospitalisations and deaths stay low, and while that’s true, experts have found that the Delta variant appears to double the risk of hospitalisation – it is 40% more transmissible than the Alpha variant and the vaccines have been found the be slightly less effective against it.
Most notably, a single dose of the Covid vaccine is only 33% effect against the Delta variant, with protection jumping to 81% after the second dose. While the vaccination programme has been incredibly successful, 44% of UK adults are not yet fully vaccinated – 2 million of whom are aged 50 and over.
We can vaccinate millions of people in those four weeks and that will substantially reduce hospitalisations.
Experts have warned for a while that a third wave has already started in the UK, partially due to the fact that the Delta variant is also much more transmissible. But infections are rising most among young people who are yet to receive even one dose of the vaccine, with some vulnerable people also yet to be fully vaccinated. Waiting another four weeks then, would mean at least 9million more people could have their second dose – half of which would have enough time for their immune system to respond enough to be protected by the end of the fourth week.
‘Before vaccination, all a delay did was push cases into the future, but we can vaccinate millions of people in those four weeks and that will substantially reduce the size of the peak hospitalisations because of that increased coverage,’ Dr Raghib Ali, an honorary consultant in acute medicine at the Oxford University hospitals NHS trust told The Guardian.
According to modelling data released today, pausing lockdown lifting entirely could prevent thousands of hospitalisations while people receive their second and first dose of the vaccine.
Reducing the risk of hospitalisation among the unvaccinated and vulnerable is not going to stop the spread of covid, but it will also decrease pressure on the NHS. Some may wonder why the NHS is still under pressure given the severe drop in coronavirus hospitalisations, but Dr Ali explained clearly that after a year of healthcare focusing purely on the pandemic, the NHS needs breathing room to treat the countless other people who need care.
‘In terms of emergency admissions, last month was the busiest since the start of the pandemic,’ he explained. ‘We are much busier now in emergency departments than at the peaks of either the first or second wave. In other parts of the hospital we are catching up with a lot of elective work because of the backlog, so for both of those reasons it’s a very bad time to have additional pressure from Covid.’
Essentially, now that life has partially returned to normal, more people are experiencing accidents and ending up in A&E, and many are finally receiving the vital treatments they’ve waited over a year for. Ultimately then, delaying lockdown another four weeks is a service to those people as well as reducing the risk of those most at risk of hospitalisation because of the rise in the Delta variant.
It’s true that we’ve come a long way since vaccination roll-out, and it might seem overly cautious to delay lockdown lifting, but given how much freedom we have now compared to just a few months ago – four more weeks of current restrictions to prevent thousands being hospitalised is a worthy sacrifice.
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