Guardian (UK) Delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, the Resolution Foundation thinktank has claimed as it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.
In an assessment of policy over the last year, it said delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January, despite evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas, led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It said these could have been avoided if restrictions were put in place quickly enough to prevent the death rate rising from early December.
While it praised the vaccination programme – delivering jabs three times faster than Europe – and financial support for firms and workers which has included £6,700 for every household on average, it said mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times”. It added that allowing extra deaths did not limit economic impacts, but rather increased them, because it only precipitated longer and more onerous lockdowns.
“Going timidly and late on lockdowns has been a disaster – causing many thousands of avoidable deaths,” said Mike Brewer, chief economist at the foundation. “Furthermore, delays to restrictions have meant them needing to be tougher and longer-lasting than in other countries, thereby worsening the economic damage.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has touched everyone, but lower-income families have borne the brunt of the crisis in terms of their lives and livelihoods. This shouldn’t be forgotten as we look to rebuild post-pandemic Britain.”
The report details how when Italy announced a national lockdown on 9 March 2020, Boris Johnson waited two weeks before doing the same in the UK. In September after cases started rising again and the government’s scientific advisers urged a circuit breaker lockdown, the government did not introduce an England-wide lockdown for over five weeks and this winter “the pattern of letting the caseload surge before acting” was repeated.
“Christmas was ‘semi-cancelled’, with reduced or no inter-household contact allowed, only on 19 December,” the foundation said. “And, despite still-surging numbers, a full return to national lockdown was not announced until 4 January, by which point we were seeing over 50,000 cases a day across the UK.”
Economic policy was far more successful, the thinktank said.
Crisis-related spending totalling £340bn has meant that “the worst recession for 300 years has seen the smallest rise in unemployment of any recession in living memory”.
It added: “Amazingly, household income has been broadly similar in 2020 to its 2019 level in aggregate, despite GDP falling by almost 10%.”
However it said the most “glaring failure of economic policy” was on sick pay, which still means 2 million low-earners receive only £96 a week if they are sick. This meant the incomes of people being asked to stay at home to save lives were not protected, which undermined the stay at home message, limited the effectiveness of the test-and-trace system and increased infections.
Downing Street has been approached for comment.
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Biden administration invests $10B in school COVID-19 testing program
The Biden administration is investing $10 billion to ramp up COVID-19 testing in schools in an effort to increase testing across the country and help schools reopen for in-person learning.
The funding comes from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and will be distributed to states and certain cities next month by the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) as part of a strategy to help get schools open in the remaining months of this school year.
The CDC and state and local health departments will provide technical assistance to states and schools setting up and implementing these programs.
The money will be used to provide diagnostic tests to symptomatic teachers, staff and students, as well as “serial screening” for those who don’t have symptoms but might have been exposed to an infectious person. The idea behind serial screening testing is to help schools identify asymptomatic people who may be contagious so that prompt action can be taken to prevent transmission
Backstory: Biden has put a major focus on reopening schools this year. He urged states to prioritize teachers for vaccinations and school staff to get at least one shot by the end of March.
Questions raised: But the guidance from CDC about reopening schools does not say testing or screening is a priority. CDC says schools should offer referrals to diagnostic testing for symptomatic students and staff at all levels of community spread, but there’s not a whole lot of data showing the benefits of screening. CDC recommends it as a complementary strategy to other mitigation measures.
What does it mean? With some teachers’ unions still resisting in-person learning even after being prioritized for vaccinations, it’s not clear these extra steps will help.
CDC addresses vulnerable communities
Included in the funding announcement for schools was a $2.25 billion initiative to address health equity issues. The grant, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will expand health services to help reduce COVID-19 health disparities.
CDC said the funding is the agency’s largest investment to date to support communities affected by COVID-19-related health disparities.
The two year grants will go to 108 public health departments for bolstered COVID-19 testing and contact tracing capabilities in underserved communities and populations, including racial and ethnic minority groups and people living in rural areas.
“Everyone in America should have equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “This investment will be monumental in anchoring equity at the center of our nation’s COVID-19 response—and is a key step forward in bringing resources and focus to health inequities that have for far too long persisted in our country.”
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WHO: AstraZeneca vaccine benefits outweigh risk
The latest development in the overseas AstraZeneca saga: The World Health Organization on Wednesday recommended that nations continue using the vaccine against the coronavirus created by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, after some European countries halted its use over safety concerns. The vaccine is not currently approved for use in the U.S.
In a statement, the WHO said its Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety was assessing safety data, and that it was staying in touch with the European Medicines Agency, the European Union’s version of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Backstory: About a dozen nations, mostly in Europe, have paused their use of AstraZeneca vaccines after a few people who received the shot developed dangerous blood clots.
However: The WHO said blood clots are common, and that vaccination campaigns should continue.
“Vaccination against Covid-19 will not reduce illness or deaths from other causes. Thromboembolic events are known to occur frequently. Venous thromboembolism is the third most common cardiovascular disease globally,” the agency said. “At this time, WHO considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue.”
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An ominous trend: German COVID-19 cases rise amid AstraZeneca vaccine suspension
Coronavirus infections are on the rise in Germany as the country has joined more than a dozen European nations in suspending the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over concerns of blood clots.
The Robert Koch Institut, Germany’s center for infectious diseases, on Tuesday reported about 83.7 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, a jump from 68 just one week prior. The institute said that this number could reach 200 by mid-April.
Possible third wave: Dirk Brockmann, a Robert Koch Institut epidemiologist, told Germany’s ARD television that the spike in cases indicates a third wave of COVID-19 in the country that was initially praised for its early response to the pandemic.
Brockmann specifically attributed the increase to the government’s easing of nationwide safety restrictions even as a new more transmissible variant has spread throughout the country.
Experts warn that the increased rate of infection, as well as the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine, could delay the country’s progress toward reaching herd immunity.
FDA official: US AstraZeneca stockpile not in danger of expiring
While Europe simultaneously wrestles with national vaccine suspensions and AstraZeneca’s own delivery shortages, the US is still sitting on a pile of tens of millions of doses. They aren’t going anywhere, and a top health official Wednesday said they’re not in danger of expiring.
“I do not believe we are at risk of throwing this out at any time in the near future,” Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine center, told a House panel.
The federal government preordered 300 million doses of the vaccine under the Trump administration, but issues with clinical trials have held up its authorization and the FDA is still waiting on additional data.
Officials have said the stockpile is intended to make it easier to quickly distribute the vaccine across the country if the company receives FDA clearance in the coming weeks.
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