On Monday 19 July, almost all coronary restrictions were lifted in England, and British everyday life more or less returned to the way it was before the pandemic.
The reopening took place despite sky-high infection rates. Just days before the major relief was introduced, British ministers were told they had to prepare for one to two million weekly cases of infection in the time ahead.
Thursday – four days after what has been popularly called “Freedom Day” – the Institute of Public Health’s sister institute in the United Kingdom, Public Health England (PHE), reports that the infection among young people is now at its highest ever. In total, almost 750,000 people tested positive for corona last week.
– It is worrying, says assistant health director Espen Nakstad to Dagbladet.
– It’s problematic
– Disturbing
The figures apply to people between the ages of 20 and 29. The infection pressure in this group is now 1154 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The United Kingdom is one of the countries in the world that has come the furthest with the vaccination of the population, but has – like several other countries – prioritized the elderly and people in the risk group first in the vaccine queue. 58.4 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 have received one dose of vaccine. The figure for the age group 25-29 is 58.9 percent. 17.2 and 21.8 per cent, respectively, have received two doses, according to Sky News.
Nakstad finds it disturbing that the infection is ravaging a group where many are still unvaccinated.
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– The fourth wave of infection in the UK has grown sharply in just four weeks and is now approaching the level of the previous major wave at the turn of the year. The difference is that the infection is now largely spread among younger people who have not been vaccinated, he says and adds:
– Figures from the UK also show that one vaccine dose does not protect very well against becoming infected – as many as two out of three people will still be able to be infected. It’s disturbing.
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– Fully vaccinated are admitted
Nevertheless, it is not the infection among the younger generation that Nakstad is most concerned about.
– The most worrying thing is that the number of hospital admissions is again increasing. Just yesterday, 788 patients were admitted with covid-19 in the UK.
He continues:
– Fortunately, there are far fewer hospital admissions than during the previous wave. This is a confirmation that the vaccines protect well against serious illness in many, but unfortunately not in all. We see that there is an increasing proportion of fully vaccinated people who are admitted to hospitals in the UK now, but these probably have a milder course of illness than the unvaccinated.
The health authorities in England state that 22.8 percent of the people admitted with the delta variant are fully vaccinated, writes the news agency Reuters.
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Nakstad has previously told Dagbladet that the British government risked a lot when they removed the coronary restrictions earlier this week.
– There is no doubt that the authorities in the UK are taking a fairly large risk now, not least because the health service has had a huge burden for almost 15 months in a row, but they have also come the furthest in Europe with the vaccination and probably think it is worth the risk. “Unfortunately, I do not think they have come far enough with the vaccination to prevent a new wave of admissions among unvaccinated people,” Nakstad said at the time.
Health Minister Sajid Javid believes, however, that it was an appropriate time to reopen society.
– It will never be a perfect time to introduce this step because we simply can not eradicate the virus. The coronavirus will not go away, whether we like it or not, he said during a press conference.
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