Living on Plague Island

After a period of relative calm the UK is now in a period of significant levels of Covid-19. This was of course inevitable. Without population wide mitigations and vaccination there are no signs of Covid-19 settling down into a predicable seasonal pattern of the type that some scientists were predicting back in 2022 and 2023. At the same time there is growing anger at the government decision to deny a Covid-19 vaccine booster this Autumn to many groups including most clinically vulnerable people, their carers and pregnant women.

Covid-19 takes off again

Professor Christina Pagel has produced an excellent summary of the information we have on the latest wave.

It looks as though hospitalisations with Covid-19 are going to be higher than in the 2024 peaks – see Christinas chart below reporting on the latest data up to 29 September 2025.

This growth is due to the FXG variant – also know as Stratus. The spread is almost certainly being fuelled by low population immunity, low rates of vaccination across the population and more indoor mixing due to the arrival of Autumn.

A blog from Bob Woodward digs deeper into the data on the UKHSA dash board on daily test positivity rate on all Covid tests by English region: Oct 1, 2024 to Oct 3, 2025. A very uneven picture emerges for England with particularly high positivity rates of Covid-19 in the North of England, the Midlands and the South West – see the chart below.

Many other European countries with better data than England based on wastewater analysis are also reporting a significant growth in activity.

Restrictions on Access to Covid-19 Boosters this Autumn

Numerous blogs on this website have discussed the decision to severely restrict access to a free Autumn booster jab and deny 12 – 13 million people many of whom are clinically vulnerable with conditions like heart disease, severe asthma, neurological conditions and diabetes a vaccine- see for example my blog of 28 August.

Of course the government and relevant authorities failed to inform the public about the changes. This means that vaccination pharmacies are bearing the brunt of public anger as it dawns on people that they are no longer entitled to a booster at a time when they can see that Covid-19 is taking off- see the BBC reporting of the issue.

There is strong evidence that some of these angry people are firing off letters of complaint to their MP’s and this may well be raised in Parliament when business resumes next week. This is reported in a new blog from the Clinically Vulnerable Families group.

Concluding Comments

Clearly this is a very disturbing picture. It is clear that Covid-19 is not a stable, predictable disease and will continue to wreck havoc in the NHS and cause untold misery to people as well as significant economic damage. We ask ourselves again, when will governments get a grip and learn/relearn lessons about the need for free access to vaccines, safe clean air in buildings and factually based public information campaigns on what people can do to protect themselves from catching this potentially very serious disease.

The restrictions on access to a vaccine boost this Autumn are particularly disturbing for those who are clinically vulnerable and their carers, pregnant women, and health and social care staff and many others.Private Covid-19 boosters are of course available at a cost of around £95-£100 but this is beyond the means of many families. One can only hope that MP’s and others can bring late minute pressure on the government to change the entitlement thresholds.

Gillian Smith

12 October 2025