Brittiskt Pandemislut
2021-04-25
RT
14 h ·
Britain is no longer in a pandemic, according to the head of the country’s official Covid-19 survey.
Sarah Walker, a leading epidemiologist at the University of Oxford and chief investigator on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Covid-19 Infection Survey, said that Britain had ‘moved from a pandemic to an endemic situation’, where the virus is circulating at a low, largely controllable level.
She was commenting on the first large real-world study of the impact of vaccination on the general population. It showed the vaccination programme is reducing symptomatic Covid-19 infections by up to 90%.
The research was based on throat swabs from 373,402 people between December 1, 2020 and April 2021. Three weeks after one dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine, symptomatic infections fell by 74% and asymptomatic infections by 57%. After two doses, these figures were 70% and 90%.
‘I am cautiously optimistic,’ said Walker. ’I think the last three months have shown the combined effect of lockdown and vaccination but long-term lockdown is not a viable solution, so vaccines are clearly going to be the only way that we are going to have a chance to control this long term.’
However, she added, ‘The virus is always going to throw us curve balls and we’re only a small step away from things going wrong again.’
This comes on the back of news that Covid-19 is no longer the biggest cause of death in the country, falling behind dementia and heart disease in March, for the first time since October.
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