Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group government, said that the UK should be ready for an increase in cases this fall due to a “wider reopening of society”
According to a leading scientist, Brits should be ready for a spike of Covid cases in autumn.
Professor John Edmunds of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, (SAGE) said that if children return to school, and more people go back to work, there will be a higher chance of the virus spreading.
He told the BBC’s Today program: “I don’t want to say it’s just about schools opening because it isn’t, it’s with a wider reopening of society that I think we’d expect to see, now summer’s over, organizations will be starting to expect their employees back at work in the office, and I think that employees want to go back to the office, and all of that will add to increased contact rates and increased risk in society.
“So I think we will see increased cases now in the coming months.”
The Sun reported that the government will write to parents of 12- to 15-year olds to request their consent to have their children vaccinated.
Unless children have underlying health issues, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JVCI), has not approved vaccinations for this age group.
It claimed that there were very few health benefits. “the margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal vaccination … at this time”.
JVCI stated that they were not taking into account the “wider societal impacts”to vaccinate children as well as the spread of the disease.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, also asked the UK’s four chief medical officers to provide their views on the vaccination of the 12-15-year-old age group.
Professor Edmunds believes school disruption should be taken into consideration when deciding whether to make a remark to the students.
According to him, the BBC: “I think we have to take into consideration the wider effect Covid might have on children and their education and developmental achievements.
“In the UK now it’s difficult to say how many children haven’t been infected but it’s probably about half of them, that’s about six million children, so that’s a long way to go if we allow infection just to run through the population, that’s a lot of children who will be infected and that will be a lot of disruption to schools in the coming months.”