Where are we on Covid?

For those who rather lost track of infection rates over the August holidays, last night’s headline may have come as a nasty shock: on Wednesday, daily Covid deaths topped 200 and the number of coronavirus patients on ventilators surpassed 1,000 – both for the first time since March. 
 
But how worried should we really be?
 
The good news is that this 200 figure sounds more alarming than it is: it was  inflated by delays in the reporting of deaths over the bank holiday. Daily deaths over the past week have been closer to 100. It’s worth noting too, that during a bad winter, flu deaths can hover around 300 to 400 a day. 
 
As for hospitalisations, the number of coronavirus patients in UK hospitals has risen from just under 7,000 to over 7,500 in the past week, but both figures are way below the peak of almost 40,000 back in January. 
 
Even so, we have seen a relatively steady rise in cases in August. A month ago, cases were falling and the decision to lift lockdown restrictions seemed to have been vindicated. Now, weeks later, infection levels are rising again, with over 30,000 new cases being confirmed every day. 
 
Various theories are being put forward as to why this is happening. 
 
In Scotland, where cases have risen particularly sharply, the most obvious explanation is that schools have already returned. This suggests we may see a further rise across other parts of the UK as their summer holidays come to an end too. 
 
Yet in the parts of the country where tourists flock to – such as Cornwall, Cumbria and Devon – the holiday season is being cited as the primary reason for a recent spike in infections. 
 
As for the rise in hospitalisations, one theory being floated is that immunity from vaccination is starting to wane, as evidenced in two recent studies, based on data from the ZOE Covid Study app and Oxford University. Though it’s worth pointing out that the latest ONS data suggests over 94 per cent of UK residents now have coronavirus antibodies. 
 
In reality, perhaps we need to acknowledge that the virus is still, to some extent, unpredictable. It’s a lot easier to draw up plausible scientific theories for why a recent pattern has emerged than it is to predict exactly what course the virus will take in the coming weeks. 
 
Around the time that infection rates started falling in mid-July, some scientists seemed to acknowledge this themselves. Unlike the continuous drop in cases witnessed during past lockdowns, they predicted we were likely to be entering a period of mini-peaks, where infection levels would bob around. 
 
It seems we may have now entered this period – whereby small changes in population immunity or contact could make the difference between infection rates rising or falling. 
 
But it’s also true that there’s a limit to the extent to which anyone can predict exactly when – or to what degree – cases will rise or fall.
 
Globally, we can see that the virus is still confounding modellers and working in mysterious ways. 
 
Back in April, few would have predicted that by August, Covid cases would be down to a negligible level in Delhi, while climbing to record levels in Israel. 
 
Delhi’s drop could be to do with the high levels of natural immunity in the population thanks to the scale of their earlier Covid crisis. But, again, that’s just one theory. 
 
As biologist Matt Ridley puts it: “The collapse of cases in India is hard to explain. This virus keeps doing this; disappearing abruptly and resurging unexpectedly despite vaccination. Epidemiologists need more humility.”
 
Of course, these uncertainties shouldn’t dissuade people from getting vaccinated; the number of people dying from Covid in the UK remains roughly ten times lower than during the winter wave – a sure sign of the vaccine’s efficacy.