SAGE Experts Warn Ending Restrictions Will Be A ‘Disaster’

SAGE EXPERTS warn that ending UK lockdown restrictions in February will be a ‘disaster’

SAGE Covid expert Professor John Edmunds suggested on Saturday, January 16, that if Boris Johnson decides to ease the national lockdown restrictions in February it could lead to a “disaster” for the country as a whole and “enormous pressure” for an already over-extended NHS. Even though the Covid R rate in the UK seems to be dropping as more and more vaccines are rolled out, statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter warned that the Covid death rate is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Speaking with the BBC, Prod Edmunds said:

“I think it would be a disaster if we removed restrictions in, say, the end of February when we have gone through this first wave of the vaccination.

“First of all, vaccines aren’t ever 100 per cent protective, and so even those that have been vaccinated would be still at some risk.

“Secondly, it is only a small fraction of the population who would have been vaccinated.

“If you look at the hospitalisations at the moment, about half of them are in the under 70s, and they are not in the first wave to be vaccinated.

“If we relaxed our restrictions we would immediately put the NHS under enormous pressure again.”

The government initially hoped that with increased vaccinations the country could ease up on restrictions sometime next month, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock has since warned that it is “impossible to say” when lockdown will end.

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