On November 3, England’s chief deputy medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, issued a warning: “Too many people believe that this pandemic is now over.”
He joins many scientists in calling on the government to adopt its Plan B. Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn’t interested; he insists vaccines can do it all.
Rewind. In early July, to expiate the frustration of watching Britain’s government seeming recklessness, I wrote here about its approach. Nearly four months later, it’s time to reassess.
The worst immediate predictions didn’t come true. Daily case numbers, while far higher than in 2020, never reached the 100,000 daily cases both scientists and politicians thought possible. Numbers ticked slowly upward, but mask-wearing dropped off slowly, and despite the cold, wet summer many went on meeting outdoors.
However, looming dangerously was the September 2 return to school. In August, many scientists and public health experts began pointing out the obvious: schools dropped mask-wearing in May; schools were not being made safer; and no one under eighteen was vaccinated. The oncoming school term would cram together the largest unvaccinated pool of people for many hours a day in poorly ventilated rooms with no masks.
What did they think was going to happen? On Twitter, frustrated parents posted their fears.
Anyone following the pandemic in the United Kingdom compares three primary sets of numbers. The first are the government-published daily numbers of new infections, hospital admissions, and vaccinations (among others). The second are the weekly retrospective statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), based on testing volunteers across the country. The third are estimates published by Joinzoe’s Covid Symptom Study.
This private effort is based on the daily contributions of about 4 million volunteers around the United Kingdom who use its app to log their daily health status, COVID-19 test results, and vaccinations. Joinzoe, a startup led by epidemiologist Tim Spector, was set to release an app tracking nutrition and health when the pandemic hit. It promptly pivoted to COVID-19. Eventually, the government realized it was producing useful information such as updated lists of covid symptoms and gave it some funding. Loosely, you could say that the ONS shows you the recent past, the government data shows you the just-past, and Joinzoe shows you the probable present.
Through the fall, all three showed slowly rising case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths. When the one-week midterm school break began in most places on October 25, daily government case numbers were touching 50,000 and Joinzoe’s were close to 90,000. In the week ending November 2, 1,131 Britons died of COVID-19. Independent SAGE’s weekly analyses have found that rising cases in schools drive transmission into older age groups. As the midterm break began, 248,000 children were out of school (2.8 percent) because of COVID-19. This year, ninety-one British children have died of it.
Today’s papers have inspected the just-released minutes of the Joint Committee on Vaccination, which delayed vaccinating sixteen to seventeen year olds until August, and twelve to fifteen year olds until mid-September. No one understands why it seems to have ignored its own models.
There’s also been a lab testing scandal. Reports that some people had negative PCR tests after testing positive at home using lateral flow tests were traced in mid-October to a private lab called Immensa. Investigation showed it had not been accredited but received nearly £170 million in government funding despite being only four months old. The number of incorrect results is estimated at 43,000; southwest England, where most of the failed tests originated, is now seeing a spike in cases.
On Halloween, I found myself arguing with someone who insisted the pandemic is over. A thousand people dying a week? They might have died anyway, or they died of other things, or they had comorbidities, or … and anyway, masks don’t work, and we have to learn to live with the virus. It’s not hard to see where she got this; soon afterward, Boris Johnson was caught on camera napping unmasked at COP26, sitting between (masked) ninety-five-year-old David Attenborough and the (masked) UN Secretary General. This in Glasgow, Scotland, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has mandated masks in all public indoor settings.
Numerous tweets pointed out that Johnson is high-risk: recent photos of the parliamentary debating chamber show universal making among opposition MPs but hardly any among Conservatives. “We all know each other,” House leader Jacob Rees-Mogg said on October 21, citing their “convivial, fraternal spirit” to scientific derision. On October 27, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced he’d tested positive. On November 2, Speaker Lindsay Hoyle noted the more than fifty COVID-19 cases among MPs and staff, canceled all non-parliamentary business, and urged MPs to wear masks and renew social distancing. MPs have told staff to work from home.
That was on November 2. That night, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust medical charity, resigned from the official Scientific Advisory Group in Emergencies (SAGE). Farrar was and is advocating stronger action against COVID-19 but denies he’s leaving over disagreements with the government. However, various press spotted this quote from his recent book on the pandemic, showing his thinking in September 2020: “I began to question the point of giving advice to a body that chose not to use it.”