There is an undercurrent of alarm building with the rapid increase in number of new covid cases over the past week or so.

No one is really quite sure what has brought this about but after a period of falling numbers, new case numbers have started to rise and have been doing so consistently overall for a week or so now. The daily number published today is 49139 and this makes the seven day weekly total now at 320594. Are we going to see the daily figure pass 50000 this week? And the weekly figure is shudderingly high.

What has come into sharp focus is the lack of third booster injections being given. It seems that there is quite a backlog and this is increasing as more people reach the six month anniversary of their second jab, at which point they become entitled to the booster. It seems that the reason third jabs are not being given is because local doctors’ surgeries are being told to focus on other conditions which means that their local patients are having to wait for a slot in a mass vaccination surgery. It is nothing to do with shortage of vaccine – there is plenty of vaccine available.

But there is of course a further underlying issue which is that it is now realised that the vaccinations, whilst effective when they are given, have a tendency to lose their efficacy after six months. This is very sad news because it may mean that regular vaccinations against covid are going to become a long term fact of life. It also could mean that overall resistance against the virus at any one time could be well down, meaning more infections of the virus and that could mean that the present high numbers might continue indefinitely. It was not what we expected and certainly not what we hoped.

It certainly does sound strange when we hear experts on the television saying that the risk of COP26 in Glasgow so far as covid is concerned is the British giving the disease to the thousands of visitors from overseas. What a strange irony when it was Britain who were at the forefront of vaccinations in the world. Morocco has today banned flights to and from the UK, Germany and the Netherlands because of covid. Also Russia has announced today that sadly Mr Putin will not attend COP26.

So we hear calls now for the reintroduction of social distancing; this is clearly a sign that many consider the wholesale removal of restrictions was premature.

Adrian Leopard     20-10-21

Photo Artur Kraft