Covid

Should we worry about new Covid variants? Much has been made in recent weeks about the potential for new Covid strains to arise, and the danger of a new super variant bypassing all our vaccines and bodies’ existing defences to cause another global pandemic even worse than this one. But while I would say that this is not impossible and could happen, it would be very unusual if this took place. We know from previous epidemics what happens when a population encounters a new virus. When Europeans first discovered South America, the viral infections they imported – measles, chickenpox, smallpox, influenza – killed more of the indigenous people than any

Since the start of the pandemic I’ve been observing friends and family and their reactions to the virus. Broadly speaking they fall into two groups; at one end of the spectrum there are the insouciant, apparently unconcerned about a viral threat they think has been exaggerated; at the other are the corona-obsessives who have avidly consumed every scrap of information they can find – of which there has been no shortage. They’ve become minutely informed on everything from T-cells to lateral-flow tests; their lives have been subsumed under a tsunami of technical information. Of the two groups it is the wilfully ignorant who seem happier. The well-informed, who have become

There are two groups in the Jewish community – mainstream Jews who, while still religious, do their best to assimilate into the wider community and the Chareidi, ultra-orthodox Jews who tend to shun British society. Those two groups are now locked in a struggle for the future of the Jewish community. For over 100 years, the Chareidi – with their distinctive costume, based on the fashions of 18th century Poland – have had a sort of symbiotic relationship with the mainstream. If mainstream Jews needed kosher slaughterers, rabbinical judgements, circumcisions and even rabbis for the smaller pulpits, they relied on the Chareidi. They were the ones with an encyclopaedic knowledge

The UK policy of delaying second doses of the Pfizer vaccine has been criticised by some as risky, with Pfizer warning that there is no data on the effectiveness of its vaccine other than for the dosing regime used in phase 3 trials: two doses, 21 days apart. But evidence is steadily trickling through. Earlier in the week I wrote here about the Scottish population-wide study which found that a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine reduced hospital admissions by 85 per cent between 28 and 34 days after the jab. This morning comes Imperial College’s React-2 study, which paints a picture that is, on the face of it, rather less

With every passing day, more Covid immunity is being gained as hundreds of thousands receive the vaccine. Of course, vaccines take time to mature in the body and offer protection, but with roughly a quarter of the population having now received their first inoculation, our approach to dealing with the virus will inevitably need to shift. The big question is how vaccination has changed the equation for how quickly society can be reopened. Modelling from the PCCF project at Bristol University, on cautious assumptions, suggests that the pace of the vaccine rollout would allow significant reopening with herd immunity achieved in July. First, let’s say how much vaccine immunity has

Is the British approach of prioritising first doses of Covid vaccines and not promising a second dose until 12 weeks later compromising our ability to fight the disease? It is not a moot point, with several EU figures asserting that it is a risky route to take. As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, as far as the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is concerned, what evidence we have supports the practice of delaying a second dose until 12 weeks after the first one; the vaccine is more effective that way. However, a question mark has continued to hang over the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. There is limited data on the most effective

This pandemic has not been short of unexpected twists. Perhaps the most surprising of them all has been Britain’s willingness to close its schools. Boris Johnson’s reasoning for his U-turn in January seemed paradoxical at best: despite judging schools ‘safe’, he closed them anyway. Even more incredibly, the bulk of British parents have been supportive of his decision. On this issue, at least, is it time to take our lead from Europe? While Britain has outpaced Europe in its vaccine roll-out, the attitude towards schooling on the continent has been much bolder than our own. Schools have remained open in both France and Spain throughout the winter, despite both countries