The King’s College data estimates that around 29,174 people currently have symptomatic Covid-19 in Britain, which has remained stable since major lockdown restrictions were lifted.
Although being ultra-cautious about the disease may seem prudent, there is mounting evidence that lockdown is causing many excess deaths through lack of adequate healthcare. ONS figures this week show that the number of people dying in hospital is still low, suggesting many people are still not being able to access healthcare.
Sam Williams, of Economic Insight, whose analysis suggests more than 21,000 people may have died because of the consequence of lockdown, said: “The public’s perception of Covid risk has been heavily distorted, and that’s probably a key explanation for what we find in our study.
“That’s very pertinent to the ‘second wave’ talk from the Government now. You cannot scare people to death and expect there to be no repercussions.”
Before lockdown was eased, experts warned that an ongoing endemic level of disease was a price we may have to pay for getting the economy and health service back on track. The data appears to bear out their forecasts.
Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton, said: “The long-term decline to zero cases of Covid-19 will always see bumps in their graphs within the downward trend. Therefore, we simply have to implement a proactive approach that will rapidly squash any emerging outbreaks.
“This includes the need for rapid case detection, effective contact tracing, immediate sharing of data across public health authorities, and will sometimes require local lockdowns or quarantine measures.”