No matter how many disastrously inaccurate predictions he makes, Professor Neil Ferguson is still doing the rounds of broadcasting studios and the parliamentary estate brandishing his crystal ball. His latest appearance was in front of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus earlier today, where he warned that ‘Plan B’ would have to be activated if Covid hospital admissions climb above 1,200 a day. MailOnline has more.
England may have to resort to its winter Covid ‘Plan B’ if daily hospital admissions for coronavirus breach 1,200, ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson said today.
Boris Johnson announced last month that face masks, social distancing and vaccine passports might need to be brought back if the NHS comes under unsustainable pressure.
Ministers said the trigger point will be hospital rates now that the jabs have made case numbers less important – but they have not put a threshold on admissions.
Professor Ferguson – a key Government adviser whose modelling prompted the first lockdown last March – suggested England should not tolerate more than 1,200 daily hospitalisations. For comparison, Covid admission levels breached 4,000 during the darkest days of the second wave in January.
Speaking to a cross-party committee of MPs today, he said that the country was currently recording around 600 Covid admissions per day.
He added: “If that figure were to double, we’d need to think about moving to ‘Plan B’.” The epidemiologist, based at Imperial College London, called for “more intense” curbs if there is a sharp rise in admissions.
To get ahead of a winter wave, he said second doses for 16 and 17 year-olds could be brought forward and advised we are “more aggressive” in administering boosters.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Daily Sceptic‘s in-house doctor has sent through the latest INARC NHS England data, which shows current Covid hospital admissions steadily declining since Covid restrictions were eased on July 21st, in spite of Prof Ferguson’s prediction that cases would rise to 100,000 a day – that was “almost inevitable”, according to Mystic Meg – and possibly to 200,000.
Current daily hospital admissions have stabilised around 600, but ICU admissions continue to decline (see below). Still no sign of the much ballyhooed “surge” after schools reopened.
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