Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has insisted that it is not yet the right time to trigger the government’s Covid Winter Plan B and reimplement some restrictions, despite NHS chiefs calling for some measures to be reintroduced amid rising cases.
The NHS Confederation wants measures such as mandatory face coverings in crowded spaces to be reintroduced as Covid cases continue to rise.
NHS Confederation chief, Matthew Taylor, told the BBC that the NHS is “right at the edge” and the nation was at a crossroads as to whether it decided to take pre-emptive action now or “stumble into a crisis once again, despite the evidence.”
However, with deaths still well below the winter peak, Kwarteng has urged the public to take-up their Covid booster jabs in a bid to stave off restrictions and avoid jeopardising the “hard-won gains” of reopening Britain’s economy.
Pointing out the lower hospitalisation and death rates compared to earlier in the pandemic, Kwarteng said: “I don’t want to inject any hint of complacency, but I think so far our approach is working.”
43,738 new cases were reported on Tuesday this week - which was the seventh consecutive day new cases were more than 40,000 - along with 223 deaths, the highest number since March.
Meanwhile on Monday, the number of patients hospitalised with Covid rose to 7,749, a ten per cent increase compared to a week earlier.
The chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation [JCVI], Prof Andrew Pollard, said that current hospital admissions tended to comprise of more elderly individuals afflicted with other health conditions.
He added that these patients do not tend to display severe Covid symptoms and are spending short periods in hospital before being discharged, explaining that the cause of the greatest pressure on the health service was unvaccinated people presenting themselves at hospital with symptoms.
“The biggest pressure is still the unvaccinated from an intensive care perspective,” Prof Pollard said.
“The boosters don't have an impact on that, that's where we really need to have people who are unvaccinated to be vaccinated.”
As part of its original Covid Winter Plan, the government is offering booster jabs to around 30 million people and a single dose of the vaccine is being offered to healthy 12-to-15-year-olds.
Face coverings are still advised in crowded and enclosed spaces under the current plan but are not mandatory.
The government has previously said that it will only trigger Plan B and reintroduce restrictions such as making face coverings mandatory again and asking people to work from home if cases rise to the point where the NHS is under too much strain. Vaccine passports could also be considered as part of Plan B.
Ministers say that although they are keeping close tabs on rising cases, there were “no plans” as of yet to trigger Plan B.
Downing Street has also said that a new strain descended from the Delta variant of Covid is under surveillance, but there was “no evidence” as of yet to suggest it spreads more easily than its predecessor.
The prime minister’s official spokesman urged the public to take up booster jabs when offered and re-emphasised the importance of 12-to-17-year-olds taking up the vaccine.
There has also been some criticism of the booster jab programme, with around 4.8 million eligible individuals having received their second dose over six months ago and not having received their third yet.
Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, insists that slow uptake is to blame and there was “no delay” in jabs being made available for those eligible and invitations being sent out.
Wales and Scotland have already unveiled their winter strategies, with the latter already having measures such as vaccine passports and mandatory face coverings in school in place.
Earlier this week, Stormont unveiled the autumn and winter strategy for Northern Ireland, with face coverings obligatory in crowded spaces indoors.
Photo by David Veksler on Unsplash
