Health secretary Sajid Javid has warned that daily Covid-19 cases could rocket to a record 100,000 after restrictions are lifted, admitting that the UK was about to enter “uncharted territory”.
Javid said on Tuesday that the number of new daily cases could quadruple during the summer from their current level of about 25,000, meaning that ministers are braced for the virus ripping through the country.
Previously Boris Johnson, prime minister, had said that daily cases could hit 50,000 on July 19, the date at which he hopes to lift almost all remaining restrictions, but Javid expects rates to rise sharply after lockdown measures end.
To offset the economic disruption that would be caused by such a wave of the virus, Javid will on Tuesday announce changes to the self-isolation rules that currently apply to those in contact with people with Covid-19.
The health secretary is expected to tell MPs that people who have had two jabs of the vaccine will no longer need to self-isolate for 10 days if they are “pinged” by the NHS app, but would instead take daily tests.
Gavin Williamson, education secretary, will also announce changes to the self-isolation rules in schools, ending the situation where scores of students have to quarantine if someone in their “bubble” tests positive.
Javid told the BBC that, thanks to the “huge wall of defence” built by the country’s vaccination programme, the number of deaths from the disease were now only one-thirtieth of those the last time daily cases hit 25,000.
Ministers will decide on July 12 whether to press ahead with the final reopening of the economy on July 19, after considering the latest data, but Johnson and Javid expect it to go ahead.
Javid’s admission that cases could surge over the summer to 100,000 a day compares with a previous record seven-day average of 61,240 on January 1 2021. Unvaccinated people, notably the young, will be particularly affected.
Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, on Monday backed the lifting of most restrictions, arguing that it was better to do it over the summer when schools were closed, rather than in the autumn ahead of the flu season.
“At a certain point, you move to the situation where instead of actually averting hospitalisations and deaths, you move over to just delaying them,” he said.
Neil Ferguson, a leading epidemiologist at Imperial College London and government modeller on Covid-19, told the BBC Today programme that the lifting of most restrictions was “a slight gamble” but justified.
“At the peak of the second wave, 50,000 cases would translate into something like 500 deaths, but that’s going to be much, much lower this time, more like 50 or so,” he said.
But he added: “The challenge is, there’s still the potential of getting very large numbers of cases, so if we get very high numbers of cases a day, 150,000 or 200,000, it could still cause some pressure to the health system.”
Ferguson said some kind of “course correction” might be needed later, while Javid pointed out that powers would remain in place for local health officials to reimpose social distancing rules in an emergency.
The government has contingency plans for compulsory Covid certification at mass events in the event of a winter crisis. Javid said he “hoped” the unlocking planned for July 19 would not be reversed.
Last week Javid, soon after replacing Matt Hancock as health secretary, struck a bullish note, saying there was “no going back”. On Tuesday he said: “I hope not, and that’s certainly not in our plan.”
He added: “There may be a variant that comes out in the future that is vaccine resistant. That means the wall of defence that we have built is no longer there.”
The health secretary has been accused by Labour of being “reckless” in planning to remove the legal requirement to wear a mask in certain settings; Javid said he would continue to cover his face in crowded places such as a packed bus or London Underground train.
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2021-07-06 09:40:56Z
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