The UK may have a ‘flu-type’ relationship with Covid by next year, a leading expert has suggested.
Professor Mike Tildesley, who advises the government on the pandemic, welcomed the recent data as ‘cautiously good news’ – and believes it may mean that the Omicron wave is ‘turning around’.
But he warned that hospital admissions are still high and that the return of schools could yet prolong the surge of the new variant.
The Warwick University professor – who is also a member of the SAGE sub group the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M) – told BBC breakfast: ‘My hope is that, as we get further into this year and next year, we are dealing with milder versions of Covid and hopefully we have more of a flu-type relationship with Covid where potentially we protect the vulnerable as we get into the colder weather, but we don’t see a return of restrictions.’
His intervention comes after the latest government figures showed a 38% drop in infections over the last seven days across the UK, with 70,924 new cases reported on Sunday.
That is still far higher than throughout most of the pandemic, but the impact of vaccines and better treatment in hospitals have helped limit the severity of people’s symptoms.
Experts are still not certain if Omicron itself makes those it infects less ill than other strains.
Turning to the likely impact of the virus in the future, Professor Tildesley told BBC Breakfast: ‘Say we get into a situation where the virus becomes very, very mild and we are living alongside it – we’re not there yet, but hopefully we will be at some point this year – then we do need to talk about not just cases but also hospital admissions and the number of people who are dying with the disease.
‘If we can get those numbers as low as possible then hopefully we can see restrictions removed and we can live alongside the virus.
‘A while ago I did say probably January is going to be a little bit rocky.
‘If this wave starts to turn around and hopefully as we get towards the warmer weather, we can start to see these restrictions removed and we can have more of a discussion about what living with Covid is going to be like, and hopefully we won’t see a return to restrictions as we get further through the year.’
Professor Tildesley said that, generally speaking, new variants of viruses tend to be more transmissible but ‘also generally milder’.
It comes amid reports that Boris Johnson could give an update as early as this week on whether Plan B will remain in place beyond January 26, with many Conservatives keen to remove current restrictions.
Professor Tildesley said that it currently looked like cases are falling ‘across the whole of the country’, adding: ‘We have had very, very high case numbers throughout late December and early January – we peaked about 200,000 at one point.
‘We do now seem to be a little bit beyond that.
‘Hospital admissions are still relatively high, albeit there is some evidence that maybe they’re plateauing or possibly going down in London, which is cautiously good news.
‘I would say we probably need about an extra week of data to really see the effect of children going back to school – we’re still only two weeks since children went back to school – but if we still see that over the next week or so, I’d be pretty confident that we are seeing this wave turning around.’
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He added: ‘Even taking into account any changes in testing, I think it is pretty clear that the Omicron wave is slowing down.’
Meanwhile, Dr David Nabarro, a World Health Organisation (WHO) special envoy for Covid-19, told Sky News there is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for the UK in tackling Covid-19.
But, he warned: ‘I think that it’s going to be bumpy before we get to the end.
‘So, even though it’s possible to start imagining that the end of the pandemic is not far away, just – everybody be ready for the possibility that there will be more variations and mutations coming along, or that there will be further challenges, other surges of even Omicron coming.’
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