England's approach to tackling the pandemic 'has been a mistake since last summer'
Virologists in Leeds are calling for a 'global vaccine plus' approach to tackle coronavirus
A Leeds virologist says England's approach to tackling coronavirus 'has been a mistake since last summer'.
Stephen Griffin from the University of Leeds suggests a 'global vaccine plus' model would be better to tackle the virus.
What is a global vaccine plus approach?
Some countries hope to keep infection rates low through a combination of vaccination, public health measures, and financial support measures, this is called a vaccines-plus approach.
Other countries, such as England, "implemented mitigation strategies that aim to prevent health systems from being overwhelmed by building population immunity through a combination of infection and vaccination."
It means we rely on a vaccines-only approach.
Stephen Griffin said:
"It's about ensuring we minimise harm and this swinging back and forth between complete open society and then harsh restrictions, which happen when you don't act quickly, and don't maintain a moderate level of mitigations that allow us to keep control of cases and prevalence low.
"People keep comparing between now and January, when we didn't really have any vaccines. I find that a completely false comparison, to say it's better than then, if it wasn't better than then, I'd be absolutely gob smacked.
"So I think the danger is, it's not sustainable to keep boosting every 4-6 months, we know our immunity is waning to this virus."
What do you expect the next few weeks to look like?
Griffin continued saying he expects the rates of young people with omicron to increase, now that schools have returned:
"I think the lack of mitigation in terms of ventilation, isolation and mask wearing in schools is woeful, it's not enough to stop infection spreading.
"Introducing retired teachers and doubling up class sizes are completely against sensible public health procedures.
"Doubling up on class sizes means you are double, or even further increasing your chances of things spreading."