By Gavin Mackintosh-
The University of Warwick has released a model performed suggesting that the vaccination of adults is not likely to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Professor Matt Keeling said: “Our modelling suggests that vaccination rollout in adults alone is unlikely to completely stop COVID-19 cases spreading in the UK.
“We also found that early sudden release of restrictions is likely to lead to a large wave of infection, whereas gradually easing measures over a period of many months could reduce the peak of future waves.”
“However, some measures, such as test, trace, and isolate, good hand hygiene, mask-wearing in high-risk settings, and tracing from super-spreader events, may also be necessary for some time,” Prof Keeling explained.
The study was published in Lancet Infectious Diseases . It modelled the combined vaccine rollout in the UK with different scenarios of relaxing lockdown measures. The goal was to predict the R number, as well as COVID-related deaths and hospital admissions, between January 2021 and January 2024.
In the model, it was assumed vaccine uptake would be 95% in those aged 80 years and older, 85% in those aged 50 to 79 years, and 75% in those aged 18 to 49.
Vaccine protection against symptomatic disease was assumed to be 88% based on phase three trial data from the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines being administered in the UK.
The findings suggest that, although vaccination can substantially reduce the R rate, it may not be enough to drive R below one without other control measures.
The researchers said the scale and the number of deaths they cause – will be influenced by how early measures are relaxed, the timescale with which they are eased, the vaccine’s level of protection against infection, and uptake of the jabs.
The model estimated that partially easing lockdown restrictions in February 2021 would lead to 131,100 coronavirus deaths in the UK by January 2024.
It was also predicted that partially easing measures in April 2021 would lead to 61,400 deaths by 2024, while starting to remove restrictions in June 2021 would result in 53,900 deaths.