Economically-crippling Covid restrictions need to be brought back immediately to save the ‘dying’ NHS, ministers have been told.
No10 has batted away calls to bring back pandemic-era curbs in response to soaring infections, with up to one in 20 people now infected.
But in a scathing editorial demanding action today, the editors of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Health Service Journal (HSJ) — two of the country’s leading health publications — accused Boris Johnson’s Government of ‘gaslighting the public’ about Covid’s threat.
Dr Kamran Abbasi (BMJ) and Alastair McLellan (HSJ) said: ‘Now is the time to face the fact that the nation’s attempt to “live with Covid” is the straw that is breaking the NHS’s back.
‘The heart of the problem is the failure to recognise that the pandemic is far from over and that a return to some of the measures taken in the past two years is needed.’
Examples of curbs needed included a return to wearing masks in healthcare settings and on public transport, the reintroduction of the £2billion-a-month free testing scheme, WFH where possible and ‘restrictions on some types and sizes of gathering’.
They didn’t set out what gatherings should be curbed. But previous limits enforced in England saw just six people allowed to meet indoors, weddings limited to a handful of guests and festivals cancelled.
Despite alarm bells being raised about the current situation, other leading experts have insisted Downing Street’s decision to axe all of the final restrictions in April was correct.
Dr Kamran Abbasi (BMJ, left) and Alastair McLellan (HSJ, right), who has no medical training, said: ‘Now is the time to face the fact that the nation’s attempt to “live with Covid” is the straw that is breaking the NHS’s back. ‘The heart of the problem is the failure to recognise that the pandemic is far from over and that a return to some of the measures taken in the past two years is needed’
Daily Covid hospital admissions have risen to a near 18-month high, with around 2,000 people currently being hospitalised every day. Yet only a third of ‘patients’ needing care primarily ill with the virus itself. The rest have incidentally tested positive, NHS figures show
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) weekly infection survey found more than 2.7million Britons were infected with Covid in the last week of June
Virus-tracking surveillance data has even shown the latest resurgence has peaked, with pressure on NHS facilities also set to ease in the coming days.
Daily Covid hospital admissions have risen to a near 18-month high, with around 2,000 people currently being hospitalised every day.
Yet only a third of ‘patients’ needing care primarily ill with the virus itself. The rest have incidentally tested positive, NHS figures show.
Deaths and ICU rates have remained flat despite the uptick in cases, with fatalities sitting at roughly 30 a day.
Top scientists say this is because the variants behind the current wave — BA.4 and BA.5 — are mild, and that sky-high immunity rates from vaccines and previous waves have blunted the virus’s threat.
One Government adviser, who didn’t want to be named, insisted there is ‘no need for Government measures’ anymore.
They argued draconian restrictions only worked when the public was scared by the disease itself, and now society isn’t so ‘worried about catching what’s essentially a cross between a cold and flu’.
‘The time of mandates and restrictions is finished and won’t help,’ the top scientist said. ‘The last two waves went down without either.’
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert based at the University of East Anglia, said reintroducing curbs now ‘is not going to actually achieve much’ and would ’cause substantial disruption’.
He told MailOnline: ‘I think the balance of evidence is that the current wave has peaked.’
But the BMJ and HSJ argue that high infection rates are increasing the number of Covid and long Covid patients it has to care for.
It is also pushing up staff absences and crippling its ability to tackle the backlog of routine care the spiralled during the pandemic, the authors said.
Dr Abbasi and Mr McLellan said Covid is ‘the straw that is breaking the NHS’s back’, amid an already ‘brutal situation’ due to prolonged underfunding, an inadequate workforce plan and a ‘cowardly short-sighted failure to undertake social care reform’.
This year, the NHS was supposed to be focused on clearing the backlog, as leaders assumed the virus would be ‘nothing more than an irritant’ that would only trigger a wave in December, their letter states. But medics are performing 10 per cent fewer elective surgeries than it did in 2019.
The pair admit the latest wave, fuelled by Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, will peak ‘in the next few days’.
But they argue the UK is in the midst of a third spike of infections in seven months and other variants will soon take hold, causing another surge.
Similar warnings from Independent Sage, a panel of experts who pushed for a Chinese-style elimination strategy, called for restrictions when cases were already falling.
During Omicron’s winter resurgence, infections fell. Only rules requiring masks to be worn in indoor venues were brought back in — but they were quickly dropped when it was clear the virus was in retreat.
Ministers refused to bring any curbs back during April, when cases soared to pandemic highs.
Latest data shows there were 1,864 Covid admissions across England each day by July 12, on average, which was 13 per cent higher than the previous week
The weekly growth rate of hospitalisations for the virus — the speed at which rates are increasing — has more than halved in recent weeks. Average daily admissions had been climbing at a rate of around 40 per cent week-on-week at times last month but this has slowed to about 13 per cent
MailOnline analysis shows how the rate of severe illness from Covid has fallen over time. At the beginning of the pandemic, one per cent of all people infected with the virus (based on the Office for National Statistics infection rate) required mechanical ventilation within two weeks. But most recent NHS bed occupancy rates show just 0.015 per cent of those infected are admitted to an ICU bed – 100 times fewer than the start of the pandemic
But the BMJ and HSJ bosses said that while the three Omicron waves have caused less severe illness, rising cases pile pressures on hospitals and raise the number of people with long Covid which is a ‘major burden’ on the NHS.
Infections worsen outcomes and recovery for other conditions, reduce hospital capacity and raise staff absences, on top of ‘further hollowing out an already overstretch and exhausted workforce’, they wrote.
The co-authors hit out at the Conservative leadership contest for ‘barely mentioning’ the NHS crisis in debates and at the overall lack of ‘political, public, or media outcry about the Covid-driven collapse in services’.
They wrote: ‘The Government must stop gaslighting the public and be honest about the threat the pandemic still poses to them and the NHS.
‘Being honest with the public will have two positive results, it will encourage the public to modify behaviour and, we hope, provoke urgent reflection about how the NHS is in such a mess so soon after the nation was applauding it on their doorsteps.’
One in 19 people across the UK were infected in the week to July 6, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics. Some 3.5million Britons were thought to be infected, up by a third in a week.
But Professor Tim Spector, who runs the data from Covid symptom tracking app ZOE, said that while it logged a record 350,000 daily Covid cases in the week to July 11, infections are flattening out.
He said: ‘The good news is case numbers won’t rise indefinitely and we’re already seeing a slight drop in numbers day to day.’
Hospital admissions are already slowing in England, rising just five per cent in the week to July 11, compared to growing by a third week-on-week in the week to July 4.
Polls show Britons are already responding to the resurgence, with three in 10 people reporting staying at home to avoid Covid in the last month and four in 10 wearing a face mask. Almost half observed social distancing rules that have not been in place since February, while two-thirds said they had sanitised their hands.
Just 16 per cent of people, around one in six, have not taken any precautions over the last month, according to the survey of 1,500 Britons for MailOnline by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.
Millions of Britons ditched masks in April as part of ‘Freedom Day’ and the Government’s living with Covid plan, which no longer made them a legal requirement.
They were only axed from official NHS guidance last month, but already individual trusts have started reimposing them.
Infection rates aren’t just rising in the UK — they are on the march across Europe, fuelled by Omicron sub-variants thought to be even more infectious than the BA.2 strain. Governments are revisiting mask guidance as a result.
Despite billions wearing masks to cut transmission, gold‑standard evidence remains thin on the ground.
Instead, the claims comes mainly from observational studies, which look at samples of people without interfering or controlling them in any way. According to these studies, there is a benefit to wearing a mask.
The multi-billion pound testing scheme was axed under plans to live with the virus. Only NHS workers, care home staff and vulnerable patients are eligible for free swabs.
The BMJ didn’t explain what size of gatherings would be acceptable under their recommendation.
But previous limits on socialising saw just six people allowed to meet indoors, weddings and funerals limited to a handful of guests and no fans at major sporting events.
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