Analysis: Delta variant’s advance meant delaying end of lockdown was inevitable

Delaying lockdown end buys time to vaccinate more and hold back a deadly summer wave says Shaun Lintern

Covid-19 is spreading fastest among younger people (PA)

The government had no option to delay the end of lockdown – the numbers have been bad and getting worse for weeks and we know from bitter experience that acting too slowly costs lives.

We are 15 months on from the start of the pandemic and many people will be disappointed and probably sceptical of the risks posed by the virus now – having been through several waves already some will question the predictions emerging today of a summer wave and 40,000 deaths.

But it is becoming clearer that the Delta variant has changed the calculations dramatically. With an increased transmissibility of up to 60 per cent compared to the previous Alpha variant of the virus, we are in a whole new scenario.

Remember, too, that the Alpha version was itself more easily spread than the original Wuhan strain of Covid-19, which started the crisis back in 2020.

As humanity has developed vaccines, the virus itself has evolved to spread and infect people faster. It’s a deadly biological cold war that means we aren’t as far forward as we had hoped to be.

Why does all this matter when we have millions of people vaccinated? Well, the Delta variant is able to evade the vaccine-induced immunity just that bit easier, meaning you really need a double dose to get the maximum protection – and even then a not-insignificant number of people, perhaps between 4 and 8 per cent, will still go on to be sick enough to need hospital treatment.

As cases rise and the pool of virus spreads out, it is more likely that those unlucky people who will get sick will be found by the virus. And while the vaccine uptake has been incredible, there remain hundreds of thousands of older people who have either had only one dose or no dose at all.

The numbers of infections we are seeing now are small but the rate of increase is alarming health officials.

Across England the doubling time for infections is around 10 days, and seven days in some areas. That means, based on 7,700 cases reported on Monday, we could see 15,000 by the middle of next week and 30,000 by the week after.

The vaccines have helped to reduce the link between cases and the rate of hospitalisations, but newly released Sage minutes show the link still exists, and if the numbers of cases double, officials expect that a week to 10 days later the numbers of hospital patients will also double.

Make no mistake, we are in a much better position than we were during the autumn of last year. The vaccines are working and taking the edge off the virus. Thousands fewer elderly people have been killed in the past few months and those who still become sick after having the vaccine may have shorter stays in hospital.

But there are still too many people who have not yet got the full double dose – only 57 per cent of the population. The delay to step four of the lockdown road map buys us time to deliver another 10 million doses, potentially more.

Scientists aren’t yet clear what the magic number for vaccine uptake is, but it is significantly more than we’ve managed to achieve yet. The Prime Minister told a Downing Street press conference that second doses would be accelerated and the aim, by 19 July, was to have two thirds of adults double dosed.

Delaying the end of lockdown is our way of shifting the advantage away from the Delta variant and saving thousands of lives. The vaccines make this possible. Without them we would be heading back into tougher lockdown.