East Suffolk infection rates have been flat for three weeks. The good news is that they are not going up again. The bad news is that they aren’t significantly going down, either.
They are at the same levels as the beginning of October 2020, just before Lockdown Two.
Why do I see this as worrying?
It’s obvious from the figures that Lockdown Two had some effect in suppressing the rate of infection. It’s equally obvious that Lockdown Three came just in time, as the new variant ramped up transmission rates. Eventually our changes in behaviour brought down the levels of infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
It was helped by the vaccination programme. It’s thought that vaccinations not only protect the vaccinated, but also to some degree inhibit virus transmission.
Now, we’re about to come out of lockdown. The ‘roadmap’ (with caveats) says from the 12th all shops can open again, including hairdressers, pub gardens and so on. By the 17th May we should be able (if we wish) to venture inside pubs, cinemas, hotels and the like. And by 21st June, all restrictions are off.
Except they shouldn’t be. Control of the virus will still be dependent on maintaining strong hygiene measures, some social distancing, and more and more people being vaccinated.
Because foreign travel will be heavily curtailed, holidaying in the UK will skyrocket. This will provide huge opportunities for pockets of high levels of infection to rapidly expand into other areas. And East Suffolk and dear old Lowestoft is a holiday destination, and a prime potential target.
From the graphs and figures, it’s clear, to me at least, that it is behaviour which has driven down Covid-19. It’s equally clear that illness, and all that entails – pressure on the NHS, and all the rest of our infrastructure and our well-being – could rapidly spiral out of control again. We may well see evidence of this appearing as soon as the end of May.
It is true that last summer local infection rates were reassuringly low, lower than they are now.
But it was this false sense of security which undid us before. By October they were rising. And soon we were in huge difficulties. It could happen agin.
So I am pessimistic.
On the otherhand, I am optimistic. During the spring and summer at least, we will be outside much more, vaccinations will continue to increase, our mental heath will improve, and we may, just may, get to October 2021 with East Suffolk not much worse off than we are now. After that? As Brian Wilson so memorably sang, ‘God Only Knows’…
Ellerby's 