When the United Kingdom emerged from one of the world’s longest and most stringent coronavirus lockdowns in April, it did so believing that the worst of the pandemic was over, reports CNN.
Expectations resulted in failure
Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted the successes of the country’s vaccination rollout and promised a “cautious but also irreversible” roadmap that would culminate on June 21, when the country would lift virtually all restrictions and return mostly back to normal.
But that date was delayed, and normal still feels some way off in the UK. Despite boasting an inoculation program that has now fully vaccinated nearly two-thirds of British adults, the country is heading towards a potential third wave of Covid-19.
The faster third wave
Nearly 120,000 cases have been reported in the past week, up by 48,000 on the previous seven days. Schools are becoming increasingly concerning breeding grounds for the virus.
Hospitalizations and deaths are also ticking back up, though so far at a significantly slower pace indicating the benefits of the vaccine but highlighting the unpredictability of a new era of the pandemic in the UK.
Vaccine for survival
Driving the surge in cases is the Delta variant, first identified in India, which amounts to almost every current infection of Covid-19 in Britain.
Britain, therefore, provides a vital test case for the world in the closely watched battle between vaccines and variants: the first example of a highly vaccinated major nation tackling a spike of this more transmissible new strain of Covid-19, without imposing new restrictions on the population.
“This variant has the potential to change the shape of the pandemic in your country,” Deepti Gurdasani, a senior epidemiology lecturer at the Queen Mary University of London, told CNN.
Impact of vaccination
“Once this variant enters a population, it’s easy to lose control of it.” The impact of vaccines in Britain is clear; those hospitalized and driving the spread are generally younger — and therefore less likely to have had both doses — than at previous points in the pandemic.
Highly effective vaccines
A study by Public Health England (PHE) found this month that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are each highly effective — at 96% and 92% respectively — against hospitalizations from the Delta variant after two doses. And an analysis of hospital admissions by PHE found similarly high levels of protection among fully vaccinated people.
With vaccines now being offered to all those age 18 and over, the country’s new health secretary, Sajid Javid, has said he sees “no reason” to push back the new opening-up date of July 19. Johnson said on Monday it is “very likely” the UK “can go back to life as it was before Covid, as far as possible” on that date.
Location extreme risky
But several countries are taking no chances, imposing strict rules on British travelers in an attempt to keep the variant away. When Germany reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers last week, Britain was kept off the list. Hong Kong followed suit on Monday, classifying the UK as an “extremely high-risk” location.
In Britain, a number of experts worry that vital lessons about the Delta variant are being ignored — and they are urging other countries to watch the UK closely, as Delta becomes the dominant strain of Covid-19 worldwide. And its stubbornness even in a country where nearly half of the population is fully vaccinated has left experts urging a more holistic approach.
“What we’re seeing is the dangers of a vaccine-only strategy,” Gurdasani said. “Vaccines are a hugely important part of our response, but we do need to protect our vaccines, and we need to reduce transmission.”
Fight against the Delta variant
The Delta variant is now almost entirely driving Covid-19 transmission in Britain, but the lessons the world can learn from the UK are far from theoretical. The strain may already account for 1 in every 5 infections in the US, experts say, and officials there are rethinking some measures even for vaccinated people as they brace for the strand to become dominant.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile warned late last week that the European Union was on “thin ice” in the fight against the Delta variant, with the highly infectious strain threatening to undo the continent’s progress in reducing infections.
Rules on social mixing
The speed with which Delta cases can accelerate is perhaps the most glaring message. The most recent seven-day rolling average of daily new infections in the UK is just under 17,000; up from 4,700 at the start of June. But a rise in infections was expected after 17 May, when hospitality reopened in England and rules on social mixing indoors were relaxed.
Experts are more closely watching what impact those new cases are having on hospitalizations and deaths; and while both are ticking up, the data shows the impact of vaccinations.
“It’s very different to what we saw in January to March” during the UK’s second wave, said Tim Spector, an epidemiologist and the principal investigator of the PREDICT studies and the ZOE Symptom Study app, which track the status of Covid-19 in the UK.
“Both deaths and hospitalizations still a fraction of what they were for the same level of new cases” at the start of the year, he told CNN.
“We are still hardly seeing anybody who’s fully vaccinated going to hospital — it’s a really tiny fraction,” he said, adding that vaccines are “definitely breaking that link” between infection and serious disease.
A sign directing people to a nearby vaccination center in Hounslow, London.
