- A “plan C” for tougher coronavirus restrictions has been discussed in official circles
- The indication of planning for potentially harsher restrictions comes as senior scientists and Labour push for the rollout of “plan B”
- Transmission in the UK was high, focusing on daily figures of Covid hospitalisations and deaths was misleading
Chief scientific adviser for the Department of Health refers to a tougher proposal beyond ‘plan B’ that has ‘not been extensively worked up’, reports The Guardian.
About ‘plan C’
A “plan C” for tougher coronavirus restrictions has been discussed in official circles, a senior civil servant has confirmed, despite ministers denying that tougher measures are an option this Christmas should the rate of new cases continue to rise.
Chappell was then questioned on whether a plan C did, in fact, exist.
“It has been proposed … The name has been mentioned. It has not been extensively worked up,” she said, adding that at the DHSC, “at the moment, the focus is on plan B”.
Plan B vs Plan C
The indication of planning for potentially harsher restrictions comes as senior scientists and Labour push for the rollout of “plan B”, an existing package of “light-touch” measures including advice to work from home and compulsory face masks in some settings.
Last week the health minister Edward Argar denied that anything of the order of a plan C – which could include restrictions on household mixing at Christmas – was being contemplated by the government.
However, the term was used on Tuesday by Prof Lucy Chappell, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), when MPs asked whether a failure to bring in plan B actions now may mean tighter restrictions are needed later.
COVID cases soar in UK
The evidence session also included testimony from Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, who suggested that although transmission in the UK was high, focusing on daily figures of Covid hospitalizations and deaths was misleading, noting they included people who needed medical help or had died for another reason.
Pollard also suggested that regular testing in schools was problematic.
“Clearly, the large amount of testing in schools is very disruptive to the system, whether that is the individual child who is then isolating, because they’ve tested positive, but they’re completely well, or it’s because of the concerns that that raises more widely in the school,” he said.
Pollard said that while vaccinating people who have yet to have a Covid jab would make a big difference for intensive care, and booster doses may reduce hospital admissions, vaccinations alone would not be enough to remove pressures on the NHS.
“When you look at where the NHS is today, it is incredibly fragile, whether it’s in primary care and secondary care or in social care, and that fragility is only contributed [to] a small amount by Covid,” he said.
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Source: The Guardian
