The former chairman of the UK's vaccine taskforce said that Covid should be treated as an endemic virus similar to flu.
With health chiefs and senior Tories lobbying for a post-pandemic plan for a straining NHS, Dr Clive Dix called for a major rethink of the UK's Covid strategy.
He said that we need to analyse if the current booster campaign is needed to protect vulnerable people. The mass population-based vaccine in the UK should be stopped.
He said that the government should back research into Covid immunity beyond the antibodies to include B-cells and T-cells, which could be used to create vaccines for vulnerable people. The goal is to stop progression to severe disease in vulnerable groups.
More than 150,000 people have died from Covid in the UK. The official figures published yesterday show a further 313 deaths, the highest daily number since February last year. It takes the deaths recorded within 28 days of a positive Covid test to be 150,057. The health and social care staff shortage that requires a million additional workers by the next decade has caused patient safety to be compromised this winter. Chris Hopson, the chief executive of the National Health Service Providers, said in the Observer that the Pandemic had exposed its weakest links.
He writes that there is an impact on quality of care and a worrying increase in patient safety risk in the most pressured parts of the system. The social care system does not have enough capacity. Asking staff to work harder is not sustainable. The Health Foundation expects one million health and care staff to be needed by 2031.
Chris Hopson said that the Pandemic had exposed the weakest links in the healthcare system. Jonathan Hordle/Rex/Shutterstock
Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, called for action after the Pandemic. We can't solve them overnight, but we have a moral duty to look at them after the hell of the last two years and say a long-term plan is in place.
Hopson said some trusts outside London would see a rise in Covid hospitalisations. He said that a number of trusts have covid hospitalisation levels at 100% of their January peak. They are near their current peaks. These organizations are likely to be 10 days or two weeks away from their peak.
He said he understood that as many as 40% of care homes had stopped taking new admissions in the last week, making it hard for hospitals to discharge patients. The president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said that social care was in a national emergency because so many staff were off sick.
The government said that historic amounts of funding were being provided for the National Health Service. They said that hospital admissions are rising, however they are not matching the numbers needing intensive care that they saw in previous waves. The National Health Service is increasing capacity by building Nightingale hubs and creating 2,500 virtual beds.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) ruled that fourth doses were not needed because most older people who had received boosters were still protected against Omicron, three months after the booster campaign began. Three months after a booster jab, the UK Health Security Agency said protection for over-65s was about 90%. Professor Anthony Harnden said the committee was watching the impact of Omicron on older and vulnerable people.
A group of senior citizens dance at a vaccination party in Netanya, Israel, before receiving a fourth dose of vaccine. Ammar Awad is pictured.
There is a debate going on. Israel became the first country to start a fourth round of Covid vaccinations for over 60s and healthcare workers who had their third jab at least three months ago. The chair of the Commons science and technology committee said a fourth dose of vaccine should be considered for healthcare workers. He said that the impact of a third dose against Covid waned after 10 weeks. It would be worth considering if a further dose of the vaccine would help reduce absences among frontline staff, given the staff shortages in the health service.
The Covid vaccines have changed the risk presented by the virus to most people. He supports the current booster campaign, but a new targeted strategy is needed to get the UK to manage Covid as an endemic virus. When we stop testing, we should consider when individuals should return to work and when they should not. He said that in the same way we do in a bad flu season.
The government should support research and analysis of how effective vaccines were at producing memory B- and T-cell immunity, and how they worked for vulnerable groups with underlying health conditions. He said that Professor Paul Moss and the Covid Immunology Consortium had provided excellent groundwork, and that vaccine manufacturers who have vaccines that have shown the most durable cellular responses to develop an Omicron and a Delta variant vaccine should be influenced.
Professor Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh, said that everything depends on whether another variant comes up.
A second booster of the vaccine probably won't do much. The evidence shows that immunity against severe disease lasts longer. If there was clear evidence of people with severe Covid ending up in hospital after their booster, we would not do a second one for the majority of the population.
The take-up of the booster vaccine last month was driven by the public's wish not to disrupt their festive season. Some of the drive to take up the vaccine has been removed because of fear. Simon Williams said that there is a widespread perception that Omicron is less worrying. variant fatigue is a term used to describe people saying that they just need to get on with their lives. It isn't great from a public health perspective.
Professor Helen Bedford of University College London warned against lumping people with doubts about getting a vaccine with people who are anti-vaxxers. If you do that, you will miss out on the chance to convince those who have genuine concerns but who could change their minds and get vaccine. It doesn't help to criticize them all as talking mumbo-jumbo.
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