LONDON (UK) – Researchers warned on Thursday that the third lockdown does not seem to have an impact on the rates of coronavirus infections in England, adding the prevalence of the disease is ” very high” and there is “no evidence of decline” during the initial 10 days of the renewed curbs.
Until the rates of infections are significantly reduced, the health services “will remain under extreme pressure” and the number of fatalities will continue to rise rapidly, said researchers heading Imperial College London’s REACT-1 prevalence study.
“The number of COVID-19 in-patients (in hospital) is extremely high at the moment, and we can’t expect that to drop unless we can achieve lower levels of prevalence,” said Steven Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics who co-led the work.
“The fact that (prevalence) is not going down has potentially serious consequences”
On January 5, Prime Minister Boris Johnson put England into a third national lockdown closing bars, restaurants and most schools, permitting only essential shops to function.
Ministers urged people to remain at home to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed and to give authorities time to roll out the vaccines to the elderly and those at highest risk.
But presenting his latest data – covering Jan. 6 to Jan. 15 – Riley said prevalence rates were at 1.58%, the highest recorded by the REACT-1 study since it started in May 2020. This is a rise of more than 50% since the last readout in mid-December.
Riley also cautioned against pinning immediate hopes on COVID-19 shots.
“The vaccine is only going to have a very limited impact on prevalence in the short-term,” he told reporters.
Paul Elliott, an expert in epidemiology and public health medicine and director of the REACT programme, said infection refuses to subside because of the prevalence of the more transmissible variant of the virus.
“We’ve really got to double down on the public health measures – wear face covers, keep your distance and wash your hands,” Elliott said. “There will be continued pressure until we can get the prevalence down.”
The government said on Wednesday, 1,820 people died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus and the number of new infections stood at 38,905, down from a recent peak of 68,053 on Jan. 8.