Should we be worried about a Christmas lockdown in the UK amid Europe Covid wave?

[Rob Thompson]

Should we be worried about a Christmas lockdown in the UK amid Europe Covid wave?

Source - ITV News

Date - 1301102021

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested he is worried a "wave" of Covid-19 infections in Europe could affect the UK.

Austria and the Netherlands - where cases have been rising rapidly - announced on Friday there would be partial lockdowns.

Germany has also had a steep rise in cases, with more than 48,000 new infections recorded in 24 hours.

Mr Johnson has urged the public to get their booster jabs in order to combat the rise in cases being felt in other parts of the continent.

'We remember what happens when a wave starts rolling in' PM warns on Covid
Austria and Netherlands back into lockdown measures as cases rise across Europe
The rise in infections in Europe comes at a time when Brits are starting to attend Christmas-dos and prepare for the festive season.

So how worried should we be about Covid encroaching on our festivities this year? ITV News asked epidemiologists what they thought.

Will infections rise in the UK?

Maybe. But experts are not expecting any significant rise like what we saw in June and July.

Matt Keeling, who has been leading the Covid-19 research at Warwick University, said the UK will likely experience more imports of infection as a result of the Europe wave.

But he said "most infection is 'home grown' with imports only contributing a tiny fraction".

Austrian police checking restaurant diners have had their jabs as country goes into partial lockdown.

Although he admitted the trend in Europe is "worrying", he says there is currently nothing to suggest Christmas is cancelled.

Modelling published by the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) suggests cases and hospital admissions could fall in the next couple of months, he said.

But he warned: "These are only projections and are conditional on a number of assumptions - most notably that people don't dramatically change their behaviour, and that there is good uptake of the booster jabs."

Prof Keeling and Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School, both agree the wave in Europe is not new, explaining the UK has been leading the wave since summer.

Prof Hunter said: "The UK has been living through this wave since August with a pre-wave that happened in June/July around the Euros football championships. So, we have already gone through this wave and have greater immunity as a result.

"That doesn’t mean to say we will not see further rises in the UK, just not as dramatic as is currently being seen in Europe, and that is because immunity wanes.

"So the European wave is them catching up with us."

Full Story: 

Should we be worried about a Christmas lockdown in the UK amid Europe Covid wave? | ITV News

WWW.ITV.COM

---

ITV News asked epidemiologists whether we should be worried as infections rise in Europe and whether we should be attending Christmas parties. | ITV National News

 

[Rob Thompson]

I must confess, the current rise in infection, in spite of the positive response to the vaccination programme, is a worry and the potential of another Christmas lockdown, well, that would be dreadful.

Hope and prayers we dont get there.