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The government has announced that the UK COVID-19 alert level is moving from Level 4 to Level 3.
Dr Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said:
“Reducing the alert level to three is appropriate given the current circulation of SARS-CoV2 in the UK. Great progress has been made in reducing both the levels of infection as well as serious illness and hospitalisation through the combined restrictions and the vaccine rollout. Nevertheless, cases have plateaued and some areas of the country are still experiencing significant levels of infection and Rt is approaching 1 again in many regions.
“Whilst our relative change in circumstances compared to the winter is most welcome, we have not yet suppressed infections to the levels seen last summer and our border policy continues to result in the importation of infections. In this regard, we must also be vigilant around the troubling growth of the B.1.672.2 variant that seems to be occurring even in areas where infections are otherwise generally falling.
“Our fantastic vaccines will ultimately provide a solution to the COVID crisis if managed properly, but we must be patient to avoid unnecessary harm returning to our population during the interim period where vaccination schemes remain incomplete. We must protect the maximum proportion of our population, including children, and ensure that groups in which hesitancy remains are provided with the support to engage with the programme. Moreover, we must continue to improve our contact tracing capabilities such that they match our excellent testing and genetic epidemiology capacity, and provide adequate financial support to those asked to self-isolate.”
Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, The Norwich School of Medicine, University of East Anglia, said:
“The reason the alert level has moved down to level 3 but not further down to level 2 is because case numbers are still not low only lower than they were. The current following 7 day rolling average is still higher than it was during the first week in September. The recent rapid increase in reports of the Indian variant is another very good reason why we can’t drop the risk level even further.”
Prof Lawrence Young, Virologist and Professor of Molecular Oncology, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, said:
“This is another important step on the road back to normal life. But while everything is heading in the right direction – low numbers of infections and high levels of vaccination – it’s important that we remain cautious for a little while longer even after the further easing of lockdown restrictions next week. The virus hasn’t disappeared. We need to keep an eye on the Indian variant which has started to spread, make sure as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with two doses and remember that we still don’t know how long vaccine-induced protection will last. Important that we keep vigilant for just a little longer and don’t give up wearing facemasks, hand washing and social distancing.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
Declared interests
Dr Stephen Griffin: “No COI.”
None others received.