This week, it appears fears over another lockdown in the UK are at an all-time high. Google Trends data has revealed that ‘Will we come out of lockdown in June’, ‘Third lockdown England’ and ‘Is there going to be another lockdown in the UK?’ are all huge search questions for the engine today.
People are concerned after Boris Johnson announced a four-week delay to the final ending of lockdown - with level 3 restrictions still in place until 19 July 2021. There will be a review of the data after 2 weeks, on 5 July, and if the data allows it, there's a possibility that restrictions will be lifted earlier.
The current data makes for grim reading - Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty presented a slide which showed that 96% of new cases of Covid in the UK are currently made up of the Delta Variant, which has proved to be more infectious than the Alpha variant. This is borne out in the figures - cases are up 42% week on week, and hospital admission have risen in the North West have risen by 64% in the last week.
When will we come out of lockdown?
As it stands, stage four of easing lockdown - where all legal limits on social interactions would be lifted - has been delayed until the 19th July. The four week extension will give scientists time to gather data, and allow more people to be vaccinated.
When it comes to lifting lockdown entirely, the focus will be on whether the NHS will be put under further strain by rising infections. Not just because more people will be hospitalised because of covid, but also because the NHS is under immense pressure due to the need for emergency and elective care.
People who have waited over 18 months for treatment are now only just able to envision a day their health is prioritised, with the NHS waiting list longer than ever. Any further stress from covid cases then, will cause undue harm to the endless list of people who need care for other reasons.
Will the UK have a third wave of Covid?
It’s thought that the success of the vaccination programme will minimise the number of people admitted to hospital, but Professor Ravi Gupta – who is one of the scientists advising the government - has warned that this also lures us into a ‘false sense of security’ about how severe the rise in cases may be – stating we are now seeing signs of a third wave of coronavirus in the UK.
‘All waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive, so the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave,’ Prof Gupta told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. ‘There may be a false sense of security for some time, and that's our concern.’
He therefore advised that the government plan to end all social restrictions in June should be delayed ‘by a few weeks whilst we gather more intelligence.’
When will the third wave peak in the UK?
Data shows covid cases are doubling every nine days, with over 52,000 new cases reported in the last seven days. Without delaying restrictions, experts warn that we would face 100,000 new cases per day within one month - much higher than the January peak. Delaying restrictions then, would allow nine million more people to receive one dose of the vaccine and, according to experts, prevent thousands of hospitalisations.
So, is there going to be another lockdown in the UK?
As it stands, the government have only confirmed that stage four of easing lockdown will be delayed by four weeks, giving more time for people to be vaccinated and scientists to gather data on the Delta variant.
When Boris Johnson was asked if we could be facing further restrictions - or a third lockdown - as a result of this third wave of infections, Johnson said that he could only speak on he basis of what he can see now, but on that basis he is 'confident that 19 July will be a terminal date, not a "not before" date.' He also said that we could not exclude the possibility that a new, more deadly, variant could emerge.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, council chairman of the British Medical Association, called on government ministers to ‘act with maximum caution', stating the UK was at a ‘pivotal moment’ in its recovery from the pandemic.
‘A premature ending of all legal restrictions which then resulted in a surge of infections would undermine our health service's efforts to tackle the biggest level of backlog of care it has ever faced,’ he said – in reference to the news that more than five million people were waiting for surgery in March this year.
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