Living on Plague Island

I returned from my early September holiday on the Sussex coast of England recently. The sun is still shining, but it is beginning to feel decidedly like Autumn on the Covid front.

Most major Western countries are seeing a rise in the level of Covid infections driven in the main by the Eris and Pirola (BA.2.86) variants. The later is a particular cause for concern because of the number of mutations it contains that enhance its ability to spread rapidly. However, as of 18 September the UKHSA say they do not know if this variant is likely to cause more severe illness or not.

Data released on 14 September showed a rise in the number of hospitalisations in England due to Covid, albeit from a fairly low base.

Death rates from Covid have also been rising as far as we can judge given the lack of routine testing.

In late August the increasing signs that problems are on the horizon prompted the government to bring forward the Autumn booster programme . However, this programme is still confined to people over 65 and specified other groups including some, but not all, clinically vulnerable people.

By 16 September there were rumours that the government was beginning to panic. The i newspaper reported that the UK was considering extending the booster programme to all over 50’s and might also be considering a new ONS infection survey. We await news on this front but both would be excellent pieces of news if they are true.

On Sunday 17 September the Observer published a piece highlighting the increasing evidence of problems on the horizon due to the spread of the Pirola variant. The article brings in contributions from several members of Independent Sage and concludes that lessons learnt earlier in the pandemic may have been forgotten.

The other event of the last few days is the well respected Jon Snow project published a new Covid paradigm.

Based on the latest evidence this highlights that perhaps everyone who has had a Covid infection is on the same spectrum regardless of whether they currently exhibit signs of long Covid, and they may share ‘as yet undiscovered characteristics of viral persistence or immune dysfunction’ and these ‘may be associated with further immune perturbation on reinfection’. As might have been predicted this terrifying scenario received no attention in the media.

This story is to be continued over the next few weeks and months but all the signs are that we are in for a bumpy ride….

18 September 2023