Boris Johnson makes plans for winter shutdown

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A contingency plan for the implementation of ‘fire’ lockdowns in winter has been drawn up by the UK government, despite previous promises that ending lockdowns in Britain would be ‘irreversible’.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has authorized the planning of short-term lockdown restrictions in case the country’s socialized health system, the National Health Service (NHS), is overwhelmed in the fall or winter months.

Speaking to I Journal, a senior government source said: “If more lockdowns are needed, the plan is for them to be short, and preferably during school holidays in late October and Christmas. Fire rated rather than going on for months at a time.

‘Barring a new strain that beats the vaccine, fears of a rise in infections similar to that seen last fall are actually being offset by other issues like a crisis in NHS staff and the likely resurgence of influenza infections and other respiratory illnesses. In addition to Covid infections, these factors could tip the NHS over the edge and force more lockdowns. “

A government spokesperson confirmed that it had these plans in place, saying: “As a responsible government, we must be prepared to respond to unexpected events as the country learns to live with COVID-19.

“As part of our strategy to deal with the virus, it is both fair and sensible that we maintain contingency plans to re-impose restrictions at the local, regional or national level if evidence suggests they are needed.

“As stated in the guidelines, we will continue to monitor the data regularly to ensure that there is no danger of the NHS facing unsustainable pressure.”

Prime Minister Johnson has vowed to implement a “cautious, but irreversible road map to freedom” with lockdown restrictions ending last month. However, the prime minister also suggested, as early as June, that there could be a return to restrictions in winter.

Government scientists have even warned that restrictions could be put in place as early as mid-August if hospital admissions increase after the final lockdown restrictions are lifted.

The release of future lockdown plans comes as Public Health England has raised concerns that those vaccinated, if infected, may be as likely to spread the Chinese virus as those who are not vaccinated.

Minutes from a July 22 meeting of the SAGE health quango said, by The telegraph: “The PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values ​​decreased as the delta variant became dominant, indicating that infected people have higher viral loads, which may further increase the strength of the infection.

“This may mean that there is a limited vaccine effect against transmission for the delta variant.”

The Ct value measures how far a coronavirus swab test needs to be amplified in order to detect the Wuhan virus, with fewer test cycles indicating that a greater viral load of the virus is found. Public Health England said it takes an average of 17.8 cycles to find the virus in unvaccinated people compared to 18 for vaccinated people.

“This means that while vaccination can reduce an individual’s overall risk of infection, once they are infected there is a limited difference in viral load (and Ct values) between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. “, says the PHE report.

The actual impact of the findings is still disputed, however, as a PHE epidemiologist Dr Meghan Kall noted that the data analyzed could be skewed as it focused on the rare cases of infected vaccinees.

“Vaccines prevent a lot of infections from happening in the first place, so we can only compare the vaccine’s ‘breakthrough infections’ versus unvaccinated infections,” Kall said.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka



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