New Covid cases could reach 100,000 a day after lockdown restrictions are eased this month, Sajid Javid said today, but he insisted opening up the country was not a “gamble”.
The health secretary told Times Radio that “jab by jab” the vaccination programme was reducing the link between infections and hospital admissions and it was time to begin returning to normal life.
He revealed government estimates suggesting that seven million people may have put off getting NHS treatment to avoid going to hospitals during the pandemic.
Javid said that he was “very concerned about all the other health problems that have built up” adding: “I’m not just the Covid secretary of state, I am the health secretary and I need to be looking at everything.”
He will reveal plans today to reform the track-and-trace system to reduce quarantine restrictions on those people who have been double vaccinated. The education secretary Gavin Williamson will release details of the end of bubbling in schools.
Speaking this morning, Javid defended the intention to end almost all planned restrictions on July 19 arguing that the vaccination programme made it possible.
“The reason we can do this and ease in this way is because of the enormous success of our vaccine programme,” he said. “It is a wall of defence that we have built as a country jab by jab, brick by brick, and it is working.
“What we have seen is a severe weakening of the link between the case numbers and hospitalisation, and deaths. Currently we’re seeing case numbers rise by about 25,000 a day. And I think that it is very possible by July 19th that could be 50,000 day.
“But even at 25,000, the last time we had numbers like that we were very sadly seeing deaths [of] around 500 a day, and now deaths are one thirtieth of that.”
Asked if he would accept that opening up was something of a gamble, he said: “No, I wouldn’t at all.” He added: “We need to learn to live with Covid.”
Javid told the BBC Today programme that cases could rise to more than 100,000 a day in the summer as restrictions were eased.
Professor Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has said the lifting of coronavirus restrictions was a “calculated risk”.
“We do have good data now that does indicate we are gradually breaking the links in the chain between community cases and severe cases in hospital,” he told Times Radio. “I should point out, looking at the data last night, 88 per cent of people in hospital, from what I could see, had not been vaccinated or had had the vaccine but hadn’t had the chance to develop immunity, so that’s within 28 days of the vaccine.
“There's now an incredibly strong signal that the vaccination is working and protecting the vast majority of people.”
Professor Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, said he expected the number of daily cases to rise above the 50,000 suggested by the prime minister but the impact of the vaccines would keep deaths far lower than in previous waves.
“What we do know is in the second wave there was a certain ratio between cases and hospitalisations and that ratio right now is being reduced by more than two-thirds, as we get more second doses into people it will go down even further,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“Even more positively, the ratio which we saw in the past between case numbers and deaths has been reduced by more like eight to tenfold.
“So the third wave, even if the number of cases per day gets very high, we’re still likely to see lower numbers of hospitalisations and deaths than we saw back in December and January just gone.”
The comments came after Boris Johnson announced plans to end virtually all coronavirus restrictions in England declaring “if not now then when?”
The prime minister said the country must use the “firebreak” of the summer holidays to lift all remaining social-distancing rules despite predictions from scientists that it will cause a new rise in hospital admissions and deaths.
As he sought to end months of lockdown and simultaneously urge caution, Johnson argued that a delay into the winter could be even worse.
“We must be honest with ourselves that if we can’t reopen our society in the next few weeks, when we will be helped by the arrival of summer and by the school holidays, then when will we be able to return to normal?” he said.
Under government plans, subject to a final review next week, from July 19 the legal requirement to wear a mask indoors is expected to end, as will limits on social gatherings and mass events.
Pubs and bars will no longer be required to serve customers sitting down, and nightclubs will be allowed to open for the first time since March last year.
Capacity limits for theatres and cinemas will be lifted and the government’s advice for people to work from home will no longer apply. The restrictions on the number of people who can visit care home residents will be lifted. Some curbs on international travel will stay.
The relaxations will apply only in England. Scotland is to review its remaining restrictions on August 9 but the Scottish government has made clear that mandatory masks in some settings will remain after that date.
The Welsh government has yet to put a date on when its restrictions will be lifted.
Setting out a five-point plan to control the virus without lockdowns, Johnson warned that the lifting of restrictions did not mean that the pandemic was over.
Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said ending restrictions could lead to “very high” admissions “surprisingly” quickly but that a peak would be reached before the levels of pressure on the NHS seen in January. He acknowledged, however, “some degree of uncertainty” in these models.
Despite the end to rules on the compulsory wearing of masks, Johnson said he would still routinely wear a covering and urged the public to exercise discretion. “I will obviously wear a mask in crowded places where you are meeting people that you don’t know, to protect others and as a matter of simple courtesy,” he said. “I think people should be entitled to exercise some discretion.”
He argued that failure to open up now would either mean doing so during the difficult winter period or delaying freedoms until next year, describing the summer as a “firebreak” because of the school holidays. “If we don’t go ahead now . . . then the question is, ‘when would we go ahead?’” he said.
Johnson also announced that the time between jabs for the under-40s would be reduced from twelve to eight weeks, with a plan to have offered all adults both doses by mid-September.
Businesses welcomed the prime minister’s decision. Michael Kill, the chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, which represents night clubs, said it was “long overdue” to hear Johnson saying that England needed to live with the virus.
Julian Bird, chief executive of the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, said the announcement was “a lifeline”.
Jo Goodman, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said that ministers were “repeating” the mistakes of last summer. “It’s a gut-churning déjà vu for those of us whose loved ones paid the ultimate price,” she said.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said that Johnson was being reckless. He urged him to keep compulsory masks, improve ventilation and give people proper self-isolation payments.
Travellers from the UK will be able to avoid quarantine in Germany if they have had two jabs or are recently recovered from Covid-19. The Robert Koch Institute, the country’s disease control centre, said that Britain would be removed from the highest risk category of “virus variant areas” from tomorrow.
