Public health expert: We will emerge from pandemic next year

The coronavirus pandemic should become an “endemic situation” by next year, one expert has suggested.

Britain and other countries are expecting a difficult winter but by next year the UK expects to be “emerging from a pandemic which is an immediate risk to health”, Professor Linda Bauld said.

But the public health academic from the University of Edinburgh said that the winter could be “difficult” and warned that more restrictions may still be needed if a variant of concern emerged which “challenges” the Covid-19 vaccines.

Another expert suggested that those who will be eligible for a Covid-19 booster shot and a simultaneous flu jab will be “as protected as they can be”.

Asked whether there could be more lockdowns in the autumn and winter, she told BBC Breakfast: “None of us has a crystal ball (but) I’m hopeful that will not be the case.

“I think we will see, for example, outbreaks and surges in localities and we may need a more targeted and local approach.

“If we have the variants we currently have, and we don’t have a new significant variant of concern that really does challenge the vaccine, bearing in mind none of the variants we have seen so far have really challenged the vaccines to the extent that the vaccines do not protect against severe disease and mortality, if we did see one in the future that raised questions (of whether) we would need to change our vaccination programme, we might have to reimpose some restrictions.

“But I think the UK and a number of other countries are really looking ahead to the coming months and saying ‘well we’re going to have a difficult winter but if we can get through this, looking ahead to next year, I think we really will be emerging from the pandemic which is an immediate risk to health to everybody in an area, to an endemic situation with this virus’.

“And that is what all of us hope.”

She added: “We are probably going to need vaccines and boosters for the foreseeable future.”

Meanwhile Dr Chris Smith, consultant virologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, told the programme: “In the autumn all the usual seasonal suspects will rear their ugly heads again with people going back to school, people going back to work, this facilitates outbreaks and spread of infectious diseases and we see that every year and we’re expecting this year to be no different.

“But superimposed on that will be the risk of more coronavirus cases, but also flu.

“Flu has gone very quiet because of the measures we have taken to stop the spread of coronavirus we have seen very few cases of flu around the world.

“This is doing two things: firstly because people are not catching it, they are not topping up their natural immunity to flu so there are more vulnerable people in the population.

“Secondly we normally have a big network of thousands of laboratories collecting samples of the flu all around the world throughout the year which are fed back to the World Health Organisation, to work out what to do about a vaccine.

“Because flu has vanished off our radar screen we are much more resorting to guesswork in terms of what vaccines are going to have to do this year for flu.

“We think there is every reason to be more worried about the flu perhaps this year or into next year and it’s for that reason, because there is a bigger risk of flu, that they’re urging everybody (over the age of 50 and clinically vulnerable) to get vaccinated because vaccine does nevertheless confer some protection even if it’s not a perfect match with what turns out to be circulating.”

He said that the prospect of over 50s and clinically vulnerable getting a Covid booster jab in one arm while getting their flu shot in the other will mean people can be “as protected as they possibly can be”.