From Radio 4 at 1pm: – Calls for Pub/bar/restaurants to stay shut until May:
“Bars and restaurants should not open before May, a scientist who sits on a sub-group of Sage (the government’s scientific advisory committee) suggests.
Dr Marc Baguelin, from Imperial College London, says reopening hospitality businesses too early could lead to a “bump” in Covid cases.
“We looked at the partial reopening and the increase in the R number, it will generate an increase in the R number, the extent of which we don’t know really,” he tells BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.”
I guess that’s the big ‘what if’ isn’t it.
If things with the vaccine go as well as well as the Government say is should, by mid-feb the 4 highest risk categories will have a least some protection, supposedly enough to reduce the chances of death or hospitalisation by 90% (which is different to not getting covid at all).
Based on 2m doses a week, everyone 65 and older and people with underlaying health problems will be vaccinated early march.
The roll out will slow then, as the people who got the first dose will be due their second, but if everyone over 65 or with underlaying health issues has 90% protection (which is a BIG if) then Hospital admissions and deaths will tiny compared to now, easily manageable by the NHS and it won’t be a healthcare problem, just another one of the things than can make you ill.
If few people are dying, so few it’s akin to the other coronaviruses and flu etc, will they care about the R rate? Assuming it cannot be eradicated now, Would it be more beneficial for us all to accept it’s part of life forever and allow our bodies to get used to it? I don’t know that’s for sure.