Chris Whitti warns of anti-virus measures needed for another two years to combat the threat of variants

Coronavirus safety measures are likely to still be needed for the next two years, said the UK’s chief healthcare officer.

Professor Chris Whitti said it could take up to two years to build a bank of vaccines and technologies that the world can respond to quickly. COVID-19 (new coronavirus infection) Subspecies and outbreak.

He said these tools would eventually “find a solution”, but by then there are still levels of risk that need to be managed.

At a webinar of the Royal Society of Medicine on Thursday, Professor Whitty said that “because of the very difficult situation at the moment,” a cautious approach will be needed for the next few years.

“What we don’t want to be is a situation where we look back six months later and say,’If I had been a little cautious for a month or two, I would have actually overcome it.'” [vaccinating] Throughout the population, we would have understood more, we knew how to deal with this, we probably have some variant vaccines in stock. ” ..

“I don’t think this should be considered an indefinite stance, but while understanding how to do this and finding a way to respond quickly to variants, I think this is probably a problem for next year or two years. I will. “

However, he said a “very broad portfolio of vaccines” is likely to be available within about two years, providing stronger protection.

“If you scroll two years ago, I think your vaccine portfolio will be very wide,” said Professor Whitty.

He added that technology “can turn vaccines into new varieties incredibly fast compared to the ways we could do it so far.”

“So I think technology will find a way to overcome this in the long run, but we have a period of risk between now and then,” he added.

Professor Whitty said the R number (virus replication rate) is less than 1, but the variants that invade the UK “have little foothold”, but added that R is expected to exceed 1. It was. More is open to the lockdown exit roadmap.

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Politicians and experts warned the public to stick Coronavirus The rules are after the stay-at-home order was lifted in the UK on Monday and the “Rule 6” returned to its original location for outside gatherings.

on Monday, Boris Johnson warned people “Proceed carefully”.

“What we don’t know is how strong our fortress is now and how strong our defenses are against another wave,” he said.

“That’s why we emphasize the importance of maintaining the discipline that people have shown for a long time.”

This shows that the level of people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the UK has dropped to the lowest level since September 24, according to a study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

According to ONS, about 1 in 370 private UK households was infected with COVID-19 during the week leading up to March 27, a slight decrease from 1 in 340 last week. The weekly estimate for the week to September 24 was 1 in 470.

However, ONS said the proportion of people who tested positive for the virus was estimated to have increased in eastern England.

This trend was uncertain in all other regions, but was declining in southeast and southwest England, ONS added.

Yorkshire and Hamburg had the highest proportion of people in any part of England who were most likely to test positive for the coronavirus in the week leading up to March 27: 1 in 230.

North West England had the second highest estimate of 1 in 280.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer said Britain was not well prepared for this type of pandemic.

Dr. Jenny Harry’s said more tests would have been performed if the tests were previously available, and knowledge of asymptomatic transmission is quick to wear a mask. May have brought a good recommendation.

Dr. Harry’s told the BBC Radio 4 Today program at the launch of the new UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA), where she is CEO. m I am very happy to accept that there is so much to learn.

“I think we share some of those failures with many other countries.”

Asked if the initial reaction to the pandemic was bad, she said, “It has merit and I think there was something we wanted to improve.”

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She said asymptomatic infections were “carefully considered” but the proportion of cases (currently considered 30%) was unrecognized.

“Obviously, the response and some interventions we took did not explain so many asymptomatic cases, so I think we can learn from what we have experienced.”