Key will be tweaking vaccines and rolling out booster jabs, says Professor Sharon Peacock

Good morning. Last year, in one of his more rash and hubristic moments at the despatch box, Boris Johnson promised the country a “world-beating” contract tracing system. That never materialised, of course, but it did trigger a debate about what aspects of Britain’s response to the coronavirus crisis have been “world-beating”. On the plus side, the UK has been able to argue that its vaccine roll-out programme is, if not quite the best in the world, certainly the fastest for a largeish economy. But on the minus side, of course, the UK’s death rate per head has been world-beating too.

This morning the UK has another dubious claim to global exceptionalism. In an interview with the BBC’s Newcast podcast, Prof Sharon Peacock, director of the Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium, said that the Kent variant of coronavirus, which is now the dominant strain in the UK, was likely to “sweep the world”.

When you look at actually the number of cases that was caused because of transmission, the number of deaths and illness that it caused simply by being much more transmissible, [that] caused numerically more problems for people in this country than it being slightly more lethal, if that does prove to be the case.

So I would say that what what’s really affected us at the moment is transmissibility, because the new variant has swept the country, is going to sweep the world in all probability.

In the future I think the key is going to be if something is particularly problematic with vaccines. I think that we’re going to be able to duck and dive around that, to get our vaccines tweaked and get them rolled out, getting boosters.

It feels like there’s a bit of a disconnect here. At Westminster and in the media there’s agonising over waiting 11 days for more clarity on summer holidays but scientists like Prof Sharon Peacock predict they’ll be working on Covid for the next 11 YEARS.

I think, looking in the future, we’re going to be doing this for years … We’re still going to be doing this 10 years done the line now, in my view.

Related: Coronavirus live news: US could have prevented 40% of deaths; new China cases at five-month low

Continue reading…

You May Also Like

Lambeth Labour council leader faces sexual harassment probe

London councillor, who resigned from post last week, is accused of sexual…

Amy Schumer ‘triggered and traumatised’ by Will Smith Oscars slap incident

Academy says it will take ‘appropriate action’, while ticket sales for victim…

Election results U.S 2020

us election update, election update, election coverage

‘A betrayal of the north’: Tory MPs frustrated at downgraded rail plan

Rail bosses previously warned axing HS2 lines for upgrades would mean decades…