Chris Whitty issues ominous Covid warning for ‘next two or three years’ UK News

Professor Chris Whitty has issued a new warning amid rising coronavirus rates in England, warning that Covid-19 has “not thrown us its latest surprise”.

England’s chief medical officer said there would be “several” more to come after Boris Johnson delayed the fourth step of the government’s roadmap out of lockdown for up to four weeks.

It comes as the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England (PHE) shows rates of Covid-19 cases in all parts of England continue to rise.

PHE said rates of cases in England among all age groups continue to rise and the highest rate is among those aged 20 to 29, with 195.9 cases per 100,000 people over the seven days to June 13, compared to 123.6 week-to-week. .

It is also the age group that has seen the largest increase from one week to the next.

A government-commissioned study found infection rates “are increasing exponentially” among young people.

Speaking at the NHS Confed conference, Professor Whitty said he expects case rates to continue to rise over the next few weeks due to the fact that the Delta variant is “considerably more transmissible” than the variant. Alpha.

“In the medium term, I expect that we will get a new winter push, a late fall / winter winter push, and that’s because we know that winter and fall promote respiratory viruses. , and so it would be very surprising if this a particular highly transmissible respiratory virus was not also favored, ”he said.

Professor Whitty said most people think there will be “other problems over the winter,” adding: “I think their size is uncertain, and part of that depends on whether we get new variants that may better evade vaccines, and that depends in part on how the current wave is crossing the UK.

“Then in the medium to long term, if I look five years from now, I would expect that we would have polyvalent vaccines that will hold the line to a very large extent against even the new variants as they come in and out. ability to respond with vaccination against new variants.

“But over the next two or three years, I think, new variants may well require us to revaccinate or consider stepping up vaccination as they go through.

“So I think we just need to be aware that Covid hasn’t thrown us its latest surprise and that there will be several more in the next period.”

He said there was currently a “new push” of the virus, adding: “I think the height of this push is still uncertain and we’ll have to see how it plays out over the next few weeks.

“But it will definitely result in more hospitalizations and, unfortunately, it will undoubtedly result in more deaths.”