Rona Forever! Brits could wear masks ‘for years’

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The UK’s deputy chief medical officer has suggested that practices such as wearing masks and using hand sanitizer could be habits Britons need to keep “for years”.

Jonathan Van-Tam made the remarks on Wednesday alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a Downing Street coronavirus briefing.

Professor Van-Tam said, according to The sun: “I don’t think we’re going to eradicate the coronavirus, ever. I think it’s gonna be with humanity forever. I think we can get to a point where the coronavirus becomes a seasonal problem. I don’t want to draw too many parallels to ‘the flu, but maybe this is how we would learn to live with it.

He continued, “Do I think there will come a big time when we throw a big party and throw our masks and our hand sanitizer and say, ‘That’s it, it’s behind us’, like the end of the war? No no.

“I think these kinds of habits that we’ve learned… maybe persist for many years to come, and it might be a good thing if they do.

When Prime Minister Johnson asked the doctor for clarification, Van-Tam said he did not believe the government “will continue to recommend social distancing, masks and hand sanitizer forever and a day.”

“I hope we come back to a much more normal world. But the point I was trying to make was – do I think some of these personal habits for some people will persist longer and maybe become lasting for some people, yes I think it is. possible.

In further comments to UK state television channel the BBC on Thursday morning, Van-Tam also made it clear that a coronavirus vaccine would not be a silver bullet to bring the country back to normal.

Explaining that even after individuals are vaccinated, they should still follow the coronavirus lockdown rules, the government adviser said BBC breakfast: “Until we are sure enough about how the vaccine works and how the disease levels drop, that even though you have received the vaccine, you will have to continue to follow all the rules that apply for a period of time. .

“It’s not something we’re going to let people wait forever, but we have to follow the science, we have to see the data that gives us the assurance that we can tell people that they can relax in some and have a fairly high degree of confidence in security. “

The government scientist’s remarks come after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that masks be worn indoors at workplaces and schools in areas with high COVID. The new directive released Wednesday also advised wearing a mask at home when welcoming visitors if a three-foot distance cannot be maintained or there is a lack of adequate ventilation.

The WHO has admitted to making the recommendations “despite the limited evidence of the protective effectiveness of mask wearing in community settings.”

Also on Wednesday, the UK became the first Western country to approve the use of a vaccine against the coronavirus, made by the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech.

In order to encourage Britons to take the vaccine, Health Secretary Matt Hancock volunteered to be injected live on TV, with the Prime Minister’s press secretary saying she could not rule out that Boris Johnson make the same offer. About 70 percent of Britons said they were “confident” in the Pfizer vaccine, and one in five said they were not.

Vaccination is expected to be rolled out from next week, with phase 1 prioritizing people over 50, people living in retirement homes, vulnerable people, and frontline medical and social workers. Pregnant women, women planning to become pregnant, and most children have, however, been advised against due to a lack of safety data for these demographics.



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