By Tony O’Riley-
Dr Susan Hopkins on Sunday called for focus to be on getting people vaccinated and preventing another wave of infections, not easing down lockdown measures.
Dr Hopkins was responding to question about lockdown easing when she said it should be eased very slowly and very cautiously.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “I hope that this summer will be similar to last summer… and that will allow us to do things that feel more normal.”
Her comments have been interpreted by some as meaning the easing of the lockdown should be delayed as long as possible for the sake of accelerating vaccinations. It could also mean it is soon to relax the lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, but more emphasis should be made on the lockdown.
“We have to follow the data, we have to see the impact of the vaccine on the ground. It’s a difficult balance: we’ve got to move as fast as we can but in such a way that keeps people safe,” he told BBC Politics East.
Although, Dr Hopkins said final decisions are taken by politicians, she urged for restrictions to be relaxed “really quite slowly so that if cases start to increase we can clamp down quite fast”.
She added: “The NHS is going to be under pressure until the end of March, as normal in winter, but even more so with the amount of inpatients they still have with Covid-19.
“Any releases that we have will have to happen very slowly, very cautiously, watching and waiting as we go with a two-week period to watch and see the impact of that relaxation because it takes that [time] to see what’s happening in the population.”
Speeding up vaccinations is considered crucial in the race to beat the coronavirus and returning the world to some normality, albeit, a new normal. That does not mean the goal of easing the lockdown is not important and there should not be a workable plan to at least gradually return businesses and society to normal.
Dr Hopkins said every effort must be made to avoid another wave of infections similar to that experienced during the current winter period.
“It is better to be cautious, let’s get the population vaccinated,” she added.
Dr Hopkins described the news that two new vaccines – produced by Novavax and Janssen – are at least 60% effective against the South African variant as “reassuring”.
England’s current lockdown is expected to continue until 8 March, when it is hoped schools could begin to reopen. National restrictions are also in place across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It came as International Trade Secretary Liz Truss guaranteed there will be no disruption to Pfizer vaccines being supplied to the UK from within the EU after a dispute over exports.
She told the Marr programme: “The prime minister has spoken to the president of the European Commission, she has assured him that there will be no disruption of contracts that we have with any producer in the EU.”
She said it was “too early” to say when the UK would send vaccine doses abroad amid predictions there will be a surplus of jabs here.
The UK would “work with friends and neighbours… [and] developing countries because we’re only going to solve this issue once everybody in the world is vaccinated,” she added.
A paper modelling how and when coronavirus restrictions might be lifted once the most vulnerable are vaccinated suggested that releasing measures suddenly could lead to “substantial additional deaths”.
Scientists predicted that continuing measures, such as social distancing, for a longer period – at least until all adults are vaccinated – may be key to controlling infections.
Dr Sam Moore, an epidemiological modeller at Warwick University who led the study, warned that even if vaccines do significantly reduce infections the impact will not be seen “for some time to come”.
He said restrictions should “relax slowly”, and added “we’re going to have to be patient”.
His comments adds to the expectation that a long lockdown is the preferred route to recovery, while stepping up the ambition of vaccinating as many people as possible.
The vaccine role out may be the quickest option to anything close to a return to normality, but a lockdown that continues until summer will lose credibility because of all the potential reasons for its extension.
Defeating the coronavirus is an important goal but it cannot be justified if it goes on into the summer.