Covid Britain, soon to be no country for Immune Compromised Old Men, offered as sacrificial lambs to the slaughter

In the Observer newspaper, first published on 4 December 1791 and the world's first Sunday newspaper, published today : 

There is a significant number of old men among the highly vulnerable, 500,000 immune compromised men, women and children living in Covid-ravaged Britain, yet Prime Minister, Boris Johnson plans, without scientific backing, to abolish the last Covid restrictions, including the requirement to isolate after testing positive, next week in England, the largest of the four nations which comprise Britain. 

What scientists have warned is that a future variant of Covid-19 could be much more dangerous and cause far higher numbers of deaths and cases of serious illness than the present Omicron. The dangers posed by accepting the widespread assumption that Covid-19 variants would continue to get milder in their impact was highlighted by epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse, of Edinburgh University. He said : “The Omicron variant did not come from the Delta variant. It came from a completely different part of the virus’s family tree. And since we don’t know where in the virus’s family tree a new variant is going to come from, we cannot know how pathogenic it might be. It could be less pathogenic but it could, just as easily, be more pathogenic”.

In addition, the virologist Professor Lawrence Young of Warwick University said : “People seem to think there has been a linear evolution of the virus from Alpha to Beta to Delta to Omicron, but that is simply not the case. The idea that virus variants will continue to get milder is wrong. A new one could turn out to be even more pathogenic than the Delta variant, for example”.

David Nabarro, a Special Envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, also highlighted the uncertainty of how future variants might behave and said : “There will be more variants after Omicron and if they are more transmissible they will dominate. In addition, they may cause different patterns of illness, in other words they may turn out to be more lethal or have more long-term consequences.”

He urged caution and said : “It would be prudent to encourage people to protect themselves and others consistently. An approach that does not do this would be a gamble with potentially severe consequences. I cannot see any upsides to such a gamble. The pandemic has a long way to go and – as is the case since it started – people and their leaders will influence its long-term impact through actions they take now”.

Ceinwen Giles, Director of Partnerships and Evaluation at 'Shine Cancer Support' who has reduced immunity after cancer treatment after being diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma, has said : ‘There seems to be the perception that immunocompromised people are very old and very sick and it doesn’t really matter’.

Gemma Peters, Chief Executive of 'Blood Cancer UK' said : “The lack of any joined-up plan to support the immunocompromised suggests that they have not featured prominently in the Government’s decision to lift the remaining Covid restrictions. We understand we cannot keep restrictions for ever, but given the potential negative impact for immunocompromised people, it is important that the Government’s advisers set out the scientific basis”.

The answer is that Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s most senior advisers on Covid, have not been asked for their opinion. The decision to lift the restrictions is a purely opportunist measure, designed to win popularity from a Covid-weary electorate and the immunocompromised are the sacrificial lambs to the slaughter.