Health News at Your Fingertips

The Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, has done some analysis on the role of mass testing in the ongoing fight against Covid-19:

There has never been a Covid-19 outbreak linked to a beach, MPs have heard.

Images of crowded beaches across the UK drew outrage as people flocked to Britain’s beaches last summer, prompting police to step in and ask people to stay away from some popular spots.

But Prof Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the science and technology committee today:

Over the summer we were treated to all this on the television news and pictures of crowded beaches and there was an outcry about this. There were no outbreaks linked to crowded beaches. There’s never been a Covid-19 outbreak linked to a beach ever anywhere in the world to the best of my knowledge.

Prof Woolhouse, who is a member of the SPI-M modelling subgroup of the scientific advisory group Sage, told MPs that mass gatherings – such as a horse racing event – are an exception because they do not involve social distancing and there are “pinch points” like travel and refreshment facilities, PA media reports.

Boris Johnson has said discussions will continue with Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford and the other devolved nations over whether the UK will leave lockdown at the same time, according to PA media.

The prime minister, who was speaking from a mass coronavirus vaccination centre at Cwmbran Stadium in Cwmbran, south Wales said it was “encouraging” that Covid infections seemed to be falling across the UK following the vaccine rollout.

Asked if he wanted the whole of the UK to leave lockdown in sync, Johnson said:

“We have continuous conversations with Mark Drakeford, with other representatives of the devolved administrations, about how to do it, just as we work on the vaccination programme together. We try and make sure we concert our approach and our general messages. I think that, overall, if you look at infection rates across the UK, they are coming down a bit now. That’s very encouraging. The big questions people will want to ask is to what extent now is that being driven by vaccination. We hope it is, there are some encouraging signs, but it’s still early days.”

Volunteers who are deliberately exposed to coronavirus in the human challenge trial (see earlier post) will receive around £4,500 to participate in the study, which will involve some 17 days of quarantine and follow-ups over 12 months, PA media reports.

Prof Sir Terence Stephenson, chairman of the Health Research Authority, said: “People are rewarded for being in those studies, or compensated. The sum is about £4,500 but that covers the initial stay and follow-up.”

He added:

The initial stay involves quite an imposition on a young person – 17 days in quarantine and you cannot be visited by any member of your family or friend or relative. For the first £1,500 for 17 days we’ve got something like £88 a day, which I don’t think anyone would sense was a ridiculous coercion or inducement.

Here is some more of what Prof Sir John Bell (see earlier post) has told the science and technology committee.

He said:

It’s not plausible to imagine a world where we vaccinate the whole country and everybody believes they are still in a place we were in six months ago, it’s just not reasonable… I think we are going to have to allow people to adapt their behaviours appropriately if they have actually had the vaccine.

Dr Andrew Catchpole, chief scientific officer at clinical company hVIVO, which has pioneered viral human challenge models, has said the coronavirus human challenge trial (see earlier post) could be adapted to new variants.

He told a press briefing:

This first trial will also then be a critical platform and critical learnings that we can then translate to any new variant viruses, should we need to put a variant virus into the model. It will take us approximately three to four months, probably, to manufacture a new variant of virus, should that be required. Then we’ll be ready to start testing in the challenge model with a variant virus, so we are able to respond very quickly to a variant. We believe the timelines of setting up a variant in the model are actually shorter than it would be for a vaccine to respond to such a similar timeline.

Covid case rates for three of the four UK nations have dropped to their lowest level since early autumn 2020, suggesting lockdown restrictions across the country have succeeded in helping to drive down the spread of the virus.

Both Wales and Northern Ireland are currently recording rates last seen at the end of September, while the overall rate for England has fallen to its lowest level since the start of October, according to analysis of the latest health agency data by PA media.

London and south-east England are also recording regional rates that are the lowest since October.
According to the analysis:

• Wales recorded 89.6 cases per 100,000 people in the week to 12 February, the lowest seven-day rate since 85.4 on 29 September.
• In Northern Ireland the rate currently stands at 120.5, the lowest since 104.1 on 29 September.
• For England as a whole, the seven-day rate as of 12 February was 142.2 – the lowest since 134.5 on 5 October.
• Scotland’s rate did not rise as high as the other nations during the recent surge in cases, and currently stands at 104.1 – the lowest number since 102.3 on 7 December.