Archive for February 13, 2021
Learning To Live With Covid-19
In an interview British Health Secretary MATT HANCOCK has said he hopes vaccines and treatments will have turned Covid-19 into a disease we can “live with, like we do flu” by the end of the year. It would become a “treatable disease”, and thanks to a mix of vaccines and treatments, we can now imagine “a path to freedom and normal life”.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Health Secretary said new drugs specifically designed to tackle coronavirus should arrive in 2021. The comments suggest Mr Hancock sees Britain living with the virus in the long-term rather than the Government pursuing a strategy of eliminating it, despite declining explicitly to endorse that suggestion at a press conference this week.
On Saturday the Government announces that the world’s most innovative treatments for Covid-19 will soon be fast-tracked through the UK’s clinical trial system. It could result in new treatments for the virus becoming available within months rather than years as the approval process is streamlined.
‘There is a very reasonable expectation you can keep this under control’
Experts at King’s College London, who have tracked symptomatic Covid since the first wave, said infections should be back to summer levels by early March.
Mr Hancock struck an upbeat tone as he said the combination of vaccines and treatments would be “our way out to freedom and normal life”.
Expanding on his hope that Covid-19 would become a “treatable disease” by the end of the year, Mr Hancock listed the factors that would need to be in place for that to happen.
First was having a vaccine that “reduces hospitalisations and deaths” and hopefully “reduces transmission”, something early data suggests may be true for the vaccines the UK is using.
Second was that “the vaccine is safe, which means that almost everybody can take it unless you have a very specific clinical condition”.
“And third there are treatments so that for the small proportion [of people for] whom the vaccine does not afford that protection, we will have treatments for [them],” Mr Hancock added. “If Covid-19 ends up like flu, so we live our normal lives and we mitigate through vaccines and treatments, then we can get on with everything again.”
Next week GPs will start offering vaccinations to millions of young and middle-aged adults with health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. The rollout of jabs to the next group on the priority list – those aged 65 to 69 – is already under way in areas which have hit the first target. The bulk of those aged 65 to 69 should receive first doses in the next fortnight, with those aged 60 to 64 next on the list, and everyone over the age of 50 promised their first jab by the end of April. Latest figures show that more than nine in 10 of all over-70s have had their first dose.
In the past 10 days, Covid deaths have almost halved among the over-85s, falling at twice the rates seen in younger unvaccinated groups. Among those aged 85 and over, Covid deaths fell by 41 per cent between Jan 28 and Feb 7, compared with a 22 per cent reduction among those below the age of 65.
Last night, The Times reported that hospital admissions and deaths are predicted to halve over the next month and fall to October levels, according to estimates presented to No 10 by its scientific advisers.
EXTRA TIME 
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