Coronavirus UK: Scientists demand RETHINK on June 21 ‘Freedom Day’

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Boris Johnson is today facing mounting pressure over June 21 ‘freedom day’ as scientists warned he will have to ‘carry the can’ for a ‘bad decision’ – comparing the Indian variant to a ‘volcano’ that could engulf the country.

The PM is being assailed by a queue of experts warning against the full unlocking – with Prof Adam Finn among those entreating him to recognise that the UK is still ‘vulnerable’ and the ‘job is not done’.

Prof Ravi Gupta, a member of the government’s Nervtag advisory panel, suggested the timetable should be pushed back ‘at least a few weeks, probably a month’ so more data are available and schools have started summer holidays.   

The British Medical Association insisted the battle against the disease is at a ‘pivotal moment’ and Mr Johnson must stick to his promise of being guided by ‘data not dates’. One consultant respiratory physician referred to ‘mini Covid volcanoes’ erupting at hospitals around the country, which are threatening to ‘explode’. 

However, others have said it is still too early to be sure what can happen, with the government not committed to making any final choices until June 14. 

Amid growing signs of alarm over the direction of the pandemic, even though deaths are still low, ministers have admitted that a surge of vaccine second doses is the only way to ‘keep us on the roadmap’. 

But Nicola Sturgeon could gazump Mr Johnson – who is due back at work today after his ‘secret’ wedding on Saturday – once again later as she is expected to announce that a reopening planned in Scotland is being scaled back dramatically. 

Coronavirus cases are on the rise UK-wide, and between May 24 and 30 there were 60 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test – an increase of 42.9 per cent compared with the previous seven days.

Yesterday, one further death in the UK was recorded by the same metric and 3,383 lab-confirmed cases were confirmed. The 22,474 cases between May 24 and 30 was 26.8 per cent higher than the previous seven days.

It comes as a two-week targeted and enhanced testing programme for asymptomatic people began today in two postcodes in the Canterbury area after the emergence of a number of cases of the Indian strain in the Kent city.

Any restrictions appeared to be all but over on beaches and parks yesterday as millions of Britons crammed into outdoor spaces and basked in glorious sunshine on the hottest day of 2021 so far, with temperatures hitting 77.2F (25.1C).

Seafronts at Lyme Regis, Bournemouth, Brighton, Weymouth and Camber Sands were all packed, and conditions are set to improve further this week, with highs of 81F (27C) by tomorrow – making Britain hotter than Rome. 

On another crucial day in the coronavirus crisis:

• Ms Sturgeon is expected to say that Glasgow and other parts of Scotland will not be able to go down to the lowest level of restrictions next week as planned; 
• An alliance of politicians and global bodies has urged the sharing of Covid vaccines with poorer nations saying it is the only way to avoid deadly new variants emerging; 
• The EU’s ambassador to the UK said he is still hoping that large numbers of Britons will be able to go to the bloc on holiday in July;
• Analysis has suggested four more countries – including Trinidad and Costa Rica – could be added to UK’s ‘red list’;
• The WHO has called for coronavirus variants to be rebranded as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta rather than using geographic locations such as Kent, Brazil and India amid claims it can fuel ‘hate crimes’.     

Going into bat for the government on the airwaves this morning, business minister Paul Scully said it was ‘looking at what happens with hospitalisations’.

He stressed that there was a focus on ‘accelerating’ of people getting second jabs – which are thought significantly to increase protection against variants.

‘Those vaccinations can help us break the cycle of people having to go to hospital if they get Covid. 

‘That is what is going to keep us on the roadmap.’ 

Prof Finn, a member of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There’s vulnerability across the country. The idea that somehow the job is done, is wrong.

‘We’ve still got a lot of people out there who’ve neither had this virus… nor yet been immunized, and that’s why we’re in a vulnerable position right now.’

Prof Finn said he had been receiving a lot of messages from ‘people telling me to shut up basically’.

‘But the truth is that a more infectious virus, which is what it looks like we’ve got, will reach people who are vulnerable – those who did not make a good response to the vaccine, those who have not yet had their doses – and that will be a problem for everyone because in the end it will be worse economically as well as for public health if we end up having to shut down again,’ he said.

Asked whether the easing on June 21 should go ahead, Professor Finn told LBC radio: ‘I fear it may be a bad decision to go with it.’

He added: ‘Scientists advise but they don’t decide, and ultimately the politicians have to carry the can for whatever decisions are made.’

However, Robert Dingwall, a SAGE adviser and professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, said ‘critics’ suggesting the June 21 easing should be delayed ‘can’t even agree on what delay they’d like’.

He said the virus was now spreading predominantly in younger people for whom the disease causes mild illness, and pro-lockdown experts had failed to take this into account.

Professor Dingwall warned the economy and non-Covid healthcare would continue to suffer if the unlocking does not go ahead. 

Others said there was ‘no logical reason’ not to ditch social distancing curbs as planned later this month. 

‘(The virus) is really running into younger age groups who are intrinsically at much lower risk,’ Professor Dingwall told Times Radio.

‘Many of the scientists who’ve been talking over the weekend simply haven’t adjusted their expectations to understand that — for these people Covid is a mild illness in the community.

‘As the Director of Public Health for Bolton said last week, the people who are going into hospital… it’s not like January, these are not desperately ill people.

‘They’re people who need a little bit of extra support with oxygen, they need access to the dexamethasone treatment, which is very effective.

‘They go in, stay in hospital for three or four days and they go out again.

‘There is no realistic prospect of the NHS facing the sports of pressures that it faced in January and February. And that’s why I think we have to push on with this.’ 

He told Times Radio: ‘By the time we get to June 21, everybody who is in the nine priority groups or the highest risk will have had both jabs, and would have had a period of time to consolidate the immunity.

The government’s former chief science adviser, Professor Sir Mark Walport, said that more data was needed before a final decision could be made about the June 21 easing of restrictions.

‘We need to substitute speculation for scientific data that’s the truth of the matter, as everyone has said in the last few days, the situation is very delicately balanced with some three sets of moving parts,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

‘Firstly we have got a new more transmissible variant, of that there is no doubt, though we don’t know exactly how much more transmissible.

‘Secondly, there’s been a change in behaviour following the relaxation of measures on May 17, and the effects of that will just be starting to come through.

‘And thirdly, we’ve got a vaccination programme that is very successful, but with a lot of people that still need both their second dose of vaccine and vaccination from scratch.

‘I’m afraid that weeks before the Prime Minister has to make the difficult decision it is going to be necessary to bring in the data.’

Dr Lisa Spencer, from the University of Liverpool, told Today: ‘There are a few hotspots as we have been hearing on the news around the UK. 

‘These are areas where the variant first identified in India seem to be causing the majority of the infections spreading quickly. And these hospitals represent mini Covid volcanoes. That’s the problem. And if we don’t handle these volcanoes carefully, they could explode and send a massive gas plume across much more of the UK.’ 

British Medical Association council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said today: ‘The Government must hold off making a final decision on whether lockdown is fully lifted on June 21 until latest data can be scientifically considered.

‘The Prime Minister had pledged he would be guided by ‘data not dates’, and it’s vital that he now honours this commitment.

‘We are at a pivotal moment in battling against the virus in the UK, and with the June 21 date signifying an end to all legal restrictions and allowing normal social mixing of people.

‘Yet since the road map was announced, we have seen the emergence of a highly-transmissible new variant and significant escalation of cases – and in the last week a reversal of a downward trend into seeing increases in hospital admissions and deaths. At the same time, we know the second vaccine doses are critical to controlling the spread of the new variant.

‘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. It would also add further demands on staff who are exhausted, both mentally and physically.’

But scientists accused SAGE experts calling for lockdown to be extended of completely ignoring the successful Covid vaccination drive – while Tory MPs urged ministers to ignore them.

Three-quarters of adults have been given at least one dose of the jabs and nearly half have been fully inoculated. 

Ministers have said they are on track to fully vaccinate everyone over-50 with two doses before June 21 Freedom Day. 

Professor Tony Brookes, a health data scientist at Leicester University, told MailOnline there was no reason to delay June 21 so long as the vaccine programme kept pace.

‘The focus should be on those who are not vaccinated, which are now people who are vulnerable and have chosen not to be vaccinated and the young,’ he said.

‘We know that this disease in the young is essentially trivial. Even Patrick Vallance said right from the start the vast majority of people will have this will just have a mild illness.

‘And that’s fact. In the young it has always been less severe than flu in the old, and that remains the case.

‘So no, I cannot see any logical reason for not just proceeding as intended (with unlocking).’ 

He claimed data suggested local outbreaks of the Indian variant were likely to peak and fall in the coming weeks. 

Indian variant hotspots Bolton and Bedford are both seeing cases start to fall, while the rise has slowed in other areas. 

‘My best guess on everything is that I would expect there to be a clear plateau, and for cases to be on their way down within the next two weeks,’ he told MailOnline.

‘If I’m wrong and it spikes to higher levels, this will not have major health consequences (because of vaccines).’ 

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused scientists of bullying the Government into extending lockdown.

‘We listen to scientists far too much at the moment. They seem at times to be bullying the Government,’ he told MailOnline.

‘It’s like the 21st of June that we are heading for and look at them all up over the weekend saying ‘don’t do it, don’t do it, we must stay locked down’.

‘My worry is that all of this is leading to us having an inability in future to deal with any virus – we are going to be screaming at each other to lockdown.’

Speaking about ‘mini Covid volcanoes’ today, Dr Spencer told Radio 4: ‘If we don’t control those volcanoes and stop them overheating, surrounding them if you like with a ring of water which consists of a protective ring of vaccination, Covid restrictions, face masks, social distancing. 

‘Then of course test and trace to plug any leaks of that water running out and letting the volcano overheat. But though we’re coping now in the NHS, if you let these areas overheat we can still end up in a serious problem in the NHS.’

Asked about second doses of the jab, she said:’We’re still not there with the second jab. If you imagine there’s about 15 per cent of the people having the vaccination do not respond. Some people don’t respond to the vaccine. Some of those will be patients who are on drugs, for example, to treat underlying medical conditions who have immunosuppressants on board, and their bodies can’t respond to the vaccine.

‘If every eligible person took the vaccine, immediately 15 per cent of the population wouldn’t be protected, even though they tried to be. And on top of that, we don’t know exactly what that number will be and we’ve got very good vaccine uptake in the UK and a great programme clearly. But let’s say 10 per cent of the population decide not to have the vaccine.

‘So even if every eligible person patient had the vaccine, you would have 25 per cent of the UK population not covered. Lets say there’s 50 million people who would be of an adult age who might end up going to hospital. That would leave about 12million people still unprotected even if the vaccination programme was as complete as it could be.

‘There’s going to be a significant proportion of the population that won’t be immune. So if the virus is released and not controlled in any way, and even over a period of weeks or months those people become infected. And then those 20 per cent then present to hospital. That could push the NHS over again very very easily.’

Thousands more are set to be added to the UK’s vaccine tally after organisers at a major walk-in vaccination centre at Twickenham Stadium opted yesterday afternoon to open up the jab offer to anyone aged over 18 in order not to waste doses, leading to lengthy queues in South West London.  

Professor Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the increased socialisation which has followed last month’s phase of restriction lifting could be expected to lead to ‘quite a lot’ of hospital admissions. 

He said while the nation had performed ‘amazingly well’ in its vaccination programme, it was still too early ‘to put the vaccine straight up against the virus’.

Professor Gupta said a delay of a few weeks to the June 21 target could have a significant impact on Britain’s battle against the pandemic, and recommended it should be made clear to the public that it would be a temporary measure based on recent events, chiefly the emergence of the Indian or B.1.617.2 strain of the virus.

‘Even a month delay could have a big impact on the eventual outcome of this,’ Professor Gupta told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

The University of Cambridge academic continued: ‘As long as it’s clear to people this is not an unlimited extension of the lockdown but actually just a reassessment, that would be realistic.

‘Because we didn’t plan for the 617.2 variant when the initial roadmap was made, and actually things have gone really well except for the fact that we have this new variant to complicate things.

‘We must remember this is a virus that does adapt, and faced with vaccines it will eventually start to make mutations to avoid them even further, and then we could be in an even more precarious situation after that.’

It comes as NHS chiefs warned that the lockdown-induced backlog of treatments for ailments other than Covid mean that even a small increase in the number of coronavirus patients could cause hospitals to be overstretched once again.

When asked about the possibility of a delay to freedom from restrictions yesterday, Environment Secretary George Eustice said nothing could be ruled out.

With both deaths and cases up significantly in the past week, experts and opposition politicians are urging the Prime Minister to keep to his ‘data not dates’ approach to easing lockdown. 

Yesterday, Professor Gupta told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It will probably take longer than earlier waves to emerge because of the fact that we do have quite high levels of vaccination in the population, so there may be a false sense of security for some time, and that’s our concern.

‘I think the problem is we are not too far from reaching the sort of levels of vaccination that would help us contain the virus and I think that people are not saying we should abandon the June 21 date altogether but just to delay it by a few weeks while we gather more intelligence and we can look at the trajectory in a clearer way.

‘If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay.’

Leading scientific adviser Professor Adam Finn said a clearer picture was needed of the impact of the easements brought in this month before further relaxations take place.

Since May 17, two households or a maximum of six people from multiple households have been permitted to socialise indoors, including in pubs and restaurants. 

Prof Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said that while encouraging data has emerged in recent weeks over Covid hospital admissions in Britain, any impact on admissions brought by the easing of restrictions in May would not be known until ‘around about June 21 or just before that’.

‘I think it’s unfortunate that everyone’s got this particular date in their head, because really what we need to do is understand how things are going and adjust accordingly,’ he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain yesterday.

‘This time around, we should be cautious, wait to see what’s happening, and then let everyone free, if you like, once we know for sure that that’s safe and that we can do that without having another round of lockdowns and so on.’

Fellow JCVI member Professor Robert Read told the BBC he thought it ‘quite possible that the Government could move to full reopening’ but it would depend on ‘whether we are seeing cases of vaccine failure’ against the Indian mutation.

Cabinet minister Mr Eustice said the Government wanted to monitor the data before making a final decision on whether to go ahead with its June 21 plans to abolish social distancing and limits on socialising.

Pressed on whether businesses should prepare for a delay to the unlocking, Mr Eustice replied: ‘I’ve said all along, as has Matt Hancock and the Prime Minister, we can’t rule anything out because we know this has been a difficult pandemic, a dynamic situation.

‘We have to make that judgment a couple of weeks before.

‘It will only be by then that we will see the full impact of the latest easements we made on May 17, so I know everyone wants to know what is going to happen but we can’t actually make that judgment until we see the impact.’ 

Chief executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson said even a small uptick in severe cases was likely to hit the health service as it recovers from the winter-into-spring lockdown, with some hospitals at ’96-97 per cent bed occupancy’.

He told Times Radio: ‘When you’ve got those volumes of patients, even small numbers of Covid-19 patients clearly add to the pressure.’

Covid cases are rising in most of England’s Indian variant hotspots, official figures show, but they have started to come down in the areas that were originally worst hit – and before hospitals could start to fill up.

Rises indicate that the variant appears to be triggering local clusters and outbreaks where it pops up – although this would be true of any strain and the variant is now dominant so all hotspots would be Indian variant ones – but if those outbreaks come under control before hospital admissions spike it will suggest the variant can be controlled with vaccines and testing.    

Parts of the country with the most cases of the B1617.2 variant in the two weeks up to May 22 were Bolton (1,517 cases), Blackburn with Darwen (497), Bedford (426), Leicester (216), Manchester (178), Birmingham (151), Wigan (150) and Central Bedfordshire (101).

The Indian variant makes up the majority of cases in all those areas except Manchester (48 per cent) – nationally it accounts for between half and three quarters.  

All the areas except Bolton and Bedford, which were the first places to be Indian variant hotspots, have seen their case numbers rise by between 23 and 94 per cent in the most recent week, between May 19 and May 25.

Cases have been increasing in hotspot areas even despite the numbers of tests staying level, official figures suggest, meaning surge testing is likely not behind the rise and there is a genuine increase.

Department of Health data show that Blackburn, which has the second highest rate of Indian variant cases, now has the most infections per person of any local authority in the country after a 70 per cent spike in a week.

The Lancashire town had 365 cases per 100,000 people in the week up to May 25, when a total of 546 people tested positive. It surpassed former hotspot Bolton, which had a rate of 362 and falling, with 1,041 cases.

Meanwhile, world leaders have been told Covid vaccines must be shared with poorer nations to prevent richer countries being hit by newly-imported deadly variants.

Global bodies – along with MPs and peers – warned of fresh lockdowns if people in developing nations do not get a huge increase in jabs. 

In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will confirm ‘whether and to what extent’ plans to further ease coronavirus restrictions can take place on June 7, amid extra controls in Glasgow to deal with rising cases.

With vaccines seen as the main escape route from repeated lockdowns to control the pandemic, governments around the world are being urged to do more to ensure those in developing nations can access jabs.

The heads of the World Health Organisation, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group and World Trade Organisation warned of a ‘dangerous gap’ in the availability of jabs, with low-income nations receiving ‘less than 1 per cent of vaccines administered so far’.

‘Inequitable vaccine distribution is not only leaving untold millions of people vulnerable to the virus. It is also allowing deadly variants to emerge and ricochet back across the world,’ they said in an open letter published in a number of global newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.

In a separate letter, a cross-party group of more than 100 MPs and peers wrote to the Prime Minister with a similar message, calling for Britain to export more jabs to developing countries in a bid to prevent new variants from wrecking Britain’s freedom plans.

Urging Boris Johnson to show ‘global leadership’ in the run-up to the G7 in Cornwall next week, the parliamentarians – including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey and Tory ex-health minister Dr Dan Poulter – urged him to commit to a one in, one out policy when it comes to vaccines.

For every dose bought for use in Britain, the signatories want the UK Government to donate a dose to the United Nations-backed Covax scheme, which is providing vaccines to low and middle-income countries.

‘The longer we wait to act, the more likely it is that dangerous variants could emerge that can evade the protections offered by current vaccines,’ they told Mr Johnson, in a letter seen by the PA news agency.

Meanwhile, schools could stay open half an hour longer each day as part of a £15 billion plan to help pupils catch-up after having their learning disrupted by coronavirus shutdowns, according to the Times.