No10 says October ‘firebreak lockdown’ is NOT on the table
No10 says October ‘firebreak lockdown’ is NOT on the table after SAGE claimed that school half-term holidays could be doubled if hospitalisations spike
No10’s official spokesman denied they were planning an October lockdownSAGE members said they were planning the ‘firebreak’ shutdown, reports sayBritain is about to see an ‘extended peak’ of infections, the SAGE source claimsContingency plan could mean an extension of the school half-term in OctoberVaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi said he had not ‘seen any plans around this’
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Downing Street today ruled out an October ‘firebreak’ lockdown touted by scientific advisers overnight.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the reports were not true.
But they admitted that contingency plans were in place as a ‘last resort’ in case the Covid situation headed south.
They said the vaccination programme had provided ‘significant defences’ which the country did not have last year when restrictions were put in place.
Vaccines minister Badhim Zahawi insisted in a round of interviews this morning he had not ‘seen any plans’ for the measure.
He stressed that his ‘hope’ is that booster shots — which vaccine advisers are yet to recommend — can prevent the Government having to shut down the country again.
Officials are confident that the jabs are doing their job, which makes a full lockdown very unlikely. Covid deaths are 10 times lower now than in January and doctors say Covid hospital patients are coming in with more mild illness.
SAGE advisers had said a ‘firebreak’ lockdown could be put in place this October, the i newspaper reported. They added that the school half-term could be doubled from one week to two in late November and early October.
Closing schools during the summer holidays helped avoid a major rise in cases after the lifting of lockdown restrictions in July, it is believed, while a return of schools in Scotland last month seems to have brought about a rise in infections.
The spokesman said: ‘It is not true that the Government is planning a lockdown or firebreak around the October half-term.’
He added: ‘We have retained contingency plans as part of responsible planning for a range of scenarios, but these kind of measures would only be reintroduced as a last resort to prevent unsustainable pressure on our NHS.
‘I think we’ve been clear throughout that we will take action, and indeed we have done when necessary to protect our NHS.
‘But under the previous occasions when that action has been required, we have been without the significant defences that our vaccination programme provides us – we’re now in a much different phase.’
The anonymous SAGE source said: ‘It would be sensible to have contingency plans, and if a lockdown is required, to time it so that it has minimal economic and societal impact.’
They added: ‘We are going to be at a peak, albeit an extended peak, quite soon, so it’s not really the same situation as last year, when failure to reduce prevalence would have resulted in collapse of NHS and people dying in car parks.
‘Hospitals might be overflowing before deaths reach the same level. Acting early will prevent this level.’
Asked about the claims on BBC Breakfast, Mr Zahawi said: ‘No, I haven’t seen any… I know where this question comes from.
‘The i newspaper was reporting that they think there could be a possible lockdown.
‘Look, vaccines have given us the ability to reduce infections, to save 100,000 lives.
‘It is through the booster programme that I hope… we can transition the virus from pandemic to endemic status and deal with it year in, year out – it is going to be with us for many years – but not have to close down our economy or take the severe measures we had to sadly take in December of last year.’
Asked about the firebreak reports on LBC Radio, Mr Zahawi said: ‘I haven’t seen any plans around this.’
Daily coronavirus infections across the UK surged 56 per cent in a week on Monday, official figures show — but the rise looked to be due to a dip in testing seven days previously.
The Department of Health’s daily update yesterday showed there were 41,192 new cases, compared to just 26,476 on Bank Holiday Monday.
There were 670,000 tests carried out on that day compared to more than a million yesterday, with the numbers typically lower during public holidays.
The latest cases mean more than 7million people have officially been infected with Covid in Britain, although millions more are thought to have gone untested.
Daily hospitalisations are still nowhere near the levels of previous waves and patients are being admitted with milder disease than earlier phases. But there are still concerns that Britain is starting from a high baseline as it heads into winter
The Government has made plans for an October ‘firebreak’ lockdown with school half-term holidays set to double in length if hospitalisations keep rising, a SAGE member claims. Pictured: One of the many millions of children returning to schools across England and Wales as classes start back after the Summer break, September 6
Another 45 Covid deaths were also registered on Monday, marking a 6 per cent fall compared to last week but this may also have been affected by the bank holiday.
Experts are now warning that tens of thousands more people will die of coronavirus and huge uncertainty remains as nine million children go back to school in England and Wales and workers return to the office.
SAGE member Professor John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said we are now ‘left waiting for herd immunity to kick in to stop the epidemic going any further, and I think we’re quite a long way away from that’.
He told The Times: ‘We’re in for a more difficult period, more cases than most people think that we’re in for, and that will put pressure on the health service.’
It comes as Professor Chris Whitty and his fellow chief medical officers in the devolved nations prepare to deliver a decision on vaccinating children this week.
The Government’s vaccine advisory panel said on Friday that it would not recommend routinely vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds because Covid poses such a low threat to their health.
It has left the decision with the CMOs who will weigh up whether jabbing kids will have broader benefits to society, such as keeping schools open during winter.
MailOnline understands a decision is expected no later than Friday.
‘Professor Lockdown‘ Neil Ferguson said on Monday he believed Britain will press ahead with plans to vaccinate children to keep infections in schools manageable.
The epidemiologist and SAGE adviser — whose modelling spooked ministers into the initial lockdown in March — said he expects Professor Chris Whitty and the other chief medical officers to approve the move.
The Government has made no secret of the fact it wants to immunise secondary school-aged children after seeing cases spiral in Scotland when schools returned from the summer holidays last month.
Professor Ferguson from Imperial College London said: ‘On balance, I think we will probably move to vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds.
‘The question becomes even finer going into younger age groups, but focusing on teenage secondary school children I think we will move in that direction.’
He added: ‘It would not surprise me if the chief medical officers… would decide to go forward with vaccination (of 12 to 15-year-olds).’
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Government on who should receive vaccines.
Scientists are divided over whether 12 to 15-year-olds should get the Covid vaccine, with some SAGE members backing the move yesterday arguing it would help to head off a surge in infections later this winter.
But experts admit routinely jabbing them might only bring cases down by 20 per cent.
Others have argued it would be ethically dubious to inoculate the age group when millions of people in poorer countries are still waiting to be vaccinated.
Professor Whitty is under mounting political pressure to approve jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds in England.
Downing Street fears that while daily cases never hit the prediction of 100,000 cases a day over the summer, they could spiral to these levels during the winter months if kids aren’t given vaccines.
This would leave the country fighting a new Covid wave at the same time as a flu outbreak, putting further pressure on the NHS.
But in its ruling on Friday, the JCVI said giving Covid vaccines to children would only have ‘marginal’ benefits to their health.
Data for the country showed its cases hit their peak on August 29 when 7,113 were recorded. But since then they have hovered at around 6,000 a day in a sure sign the country’s outbreak may no longer be growing
The above is a snip of Covid cases in Scotland since June by date recorded. It shows that the seven-day average for cases (blue line) now appears to have started to level off, in a sure sign the country’s outbreak is no longer growing.
It said that the benefits did not yet outweigh the risk of potential side effects – namely heart inflammation.
Professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chairman of the JCVI, this morning acknowledged that the group was in the ‘uncomfortable’ position of disagreeing with the Government.
He told Good Morning Britain: ‘It is very finely balanced. It’s marginally in favour, actually if you look at all the figures — and we have published those — in favour of vaccination.
‘But I do understand it from a parental viewpoint and I understand it from a teenager’s viewpoint.
‘This is not an easy decision. And, to a certain extent, by us coming out and saying no, if the Government say yes that does create a lot of uncomfortableness, and I fully understand that.’
He said they want to provide the data for everyone to look at and, should the chief medical officers decide healthy children in this age group should be offered a jab, they are ‘giving choice’.
He added: ‘It is up to then parents and teenagers to decide whether they go ahead or not. There isn’t a right or wrong answer to this.’
Mr Zahawi told Times Radio yesterday that children would be able to overrule their parents to get the vaccine, should the jab be recommended for the age group.
He said: ‘What you essentially do is make sure that the clinicians discuss this with the parents, with the teenager, and if they are then deemed to be able to make a decision that is competent, then that decision will go in the favour of what the teenager decides to do.’
Mr Zahawi added that if jabbing 12 to 15-year-olds was recommended by Britain’s medical officers it was ‘absolutely’ the right thing to do.
He said that parents would be asked for consent if jabs were approved for the age group.
Medics have warned, however, that clinicians will be ‘reluctant’ to give jabs to children without their parents’ consent.
The associate professor of family law at Oxford University, Lucinda Ferguson, told The Telegraph: ‘In my view the clinician may well be reluctant to accept that because alongside that, you have now got the JCVI saying that they don’t consider it to be essentially in the medical best interests of children more generally.
She added: ‘At least at this stage wold be reluctant to accept that that consent (from a child) is good enough because of course if you treat a child without informed consent, either from them, or from a parent with parental responsibility, it is technically battery and that would be what would be concerning the clinician.’
Several SAGE members have already said they are in favour of vaccinating the age group to head off a surge in cases later this year.
SAGE adviser Professor Peter Openshaw backed vaccinating the age group to head off a surge in infections.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘We do know the virus is circulating very widely amongst this age group, and that if we’re going to be able to get the rates down and also prevent further surges of infection perhaps later in the winter, then this is the group that needs to become immune.
‘And the best way to become immune is through vaccination, and there’s never been as much information as this in the past.’
England’s Covid cases have plateaued over the last month ahead of schools returning, data shows. The country is currently recording around 26,000 new infections every day on average (pictured). Experts fear this will surge in the coming days, however, amid the return of schools
He added: ‘To my mind, the public health benefit is very, very important, and we have to take the wider view that unless we do get infection rates down amongst this particular part of the population, it will be very, very hard to prevent further large recurrences (of Covid).’
Professor Ferguson added that Scotland’s Covid cases may already be plateauing barely a fortnight after the country’s schools returned from the summer holidays.
Cases more than doubled on the back of Scottish classes returning from the summer break on August 18 and there were fears the rest of the UK would be hit with a similar surge with millions of pupils heading back on Monday.
But latest data from the UK Government’s Covid dashboard suggests that while case numbers are still very high in Scotland, they no longer appear to be growing.
The number of people testing positive nationally appears to have peaked at a record 7,113 on August 29, after surging from around 2,500 in the week schools went back.
But the seven-day average for infections — which rose to 6,000 on August 30 — is now hovering just below this level, in a sign the country’s outbreak may no longer be growing. On Monday Scotland recorded 7,065 cases.
Professor Ferguson said the data suggested ‘the hint of a plateau’ in infections.
It is an encouraging sign for the rest of the UK that suggests that even if other countries are hit hard with a big bang in cases over the first couple of weeks after schools return it will not be long lasting.
Professor Ferguson, warned England had some ‘difficult weeks ahead’, however, because of the surge in cases predicted to hit over the winter months when the NHS is under the greatest pressure.
England has followed Scotland’s Covid trajectory this summer with cases spiralling in both countries following their national team’s success in the Euros.
As children head back to the classroom in England infections are 13 times higher than they were last September, when the end of the summer holidays then sparked the second wave.
It comes amid calls for 12 to 15-year-olds to be offered the Covid vaccine, with some SAGE advisers arguing that it would help to head off a surge in infections later this winter.
But others have argued it would be ethically dubious to inoculate the age group when millions of people in poorer countries are still waiting to be vaccinated.
