November 9, 2020

expert reaction to comments made by Prof Sir John Bell about whether life could be returning to normal by spring, on BBC Radio 4’s World at One

After hearing about the early Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine trial data, Sir John Bell told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that life could start returning to normal by spring. 

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, UEA, said:

“It all depends on what you mean by the question ‘when will COVID be over’.  In some sense it may never be over and our grandchildren’s grandchildren may suffer from SARS-CoV-2 infection.  But if they do it will probably only be responsible for the common cold, by then.  This is probably what happened with the other two human beta coronaviruses with the really thrilling names OC43 and HKU1 (beta coronaviruses).

“If we don’t have an effective vaccine in my view the disease will almost certainly ebb towards spring and I have been saying for some months that by April the worst is likely to be behind us even without a vaccine.  But a further peak next winter (2021 – 2022) is still highly likely.  But personally I doubt it would be as great as this winter.

“With a vaccine however, things could be very different, depending on the vaccine’s efficacy and it’s take up by the population.  It’s doubtful that even with good take up of the vaccine we will achieve herd immunity.  Also any programme of vaccination will not be complete till spring so vaccination is unlikely to make a dramatic impact this winter, maybe until March and April.  Even with vaccination we are still likely to see an increase in the number of cases again next winter, but if many of the more vulnerable groups are immunized by then hospitalisations and deaths should be much lower.

“In the meantime it is likely that we will still need to be observing some level of social distancing until Spring.”

Prof Eleanor Riley, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Disease, University of Edinburgh, said:

“With the best will in the world, this vaccine – or any other vaccine currently in trials – isn’t going to change things for the majority of us this winter.

“If we can start vaccinating the elderly and otherwise vulnerable, as well as NHS and care home staff, before the end of the year at the very earliest, it will still take time to roll it out to enough people to substantially reduce the pool of highly vulnerable people.  Also, this vaccine needs two doses, three weeks apart and it will take at least a week after the second vaccination before you are fully protected.  So even if you were vaccinated on one day, you couldn’t be confident you were immune for at least a month after that.  Finally, we don’t know if the vaccine simply reduces symptoms or whether it prevents infection?  If not, maybe it nevertheless prevents or substantially reduces transmission?  We don’t know yet.

“So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer.  But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021.”

Interview at 07:55 at this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000p6f9

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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