Boris Johnson refuses to disclose data on predicted summer Covid cases
Boris Johnson has refused to divulge government projections on summer Covid cases data after England drops almost all its restrictions in less than two weeks.
Health secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday that up to 100,000 people could test positive for Covid each day by next month, after social distancing and mandatory face masks are dropped.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer today asked the Prime Minister on multiple occasions if this figure was correct and if he can say what the government expects hospitalisation data would look like if this happens.
Johnson refused to answer the question and instead questioned whether Labour opposed Monday’s announcement of a mass shedding of Covid restrictions.
So far, it appears that Labour’s main opposition to the big bang easing of restrictions is the scrapping of mandatory face masks.
“There are a number of projections and they’re available form the SPI-M graphs, but it is certainly true we’re seeing a wave of cases due to the Delta variant,” Johnson said.
“But scientists are clear we’ve severed the link between the disease and serious infection and death.”
When asked if 100,00 people self-isolating a day was a good outcome, Johnson said: “I want to thank everyone who self isolates, they’re doing the right thing and they’re a vital part of this country’s protection against the disease.
“What we’ll be doing is moving away from self-isolation to testing in the next few weeks and that’s the prudent approach, because we’ll have vaccinated more people.”
His comments came just two days after Sir Patrick Vallance, at a press conference alongside the Prime Minister, said the link had been weakened but not broken.
On Monday, Sir Patrick, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, said there had been an increase in the number of people in hospital, but the rise was not as steep as it had been in January.
“The doubling time is slower than for cases so it’s not rising as fast, but the hospitalisations are rising and are rising quite steeply in some places, and we would expect them to continue,” he told the briefing.
Javid announced yesterday that people who are fully vaccinated will no longer have to self-isolate after being in close contact with a Covid case from 16 August.
However, they will still be encouraged to take a PCR test and will have to self-isolate if the result is positive.