Too many people think the pandemic is over, warns England’s No. 2 medical officer

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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly session of Prime Minsters Questions at Parliament in London, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

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The British government reported 41,299 new COVID-19 cases and 217 deaths Wednesday. The country recorded its highest daily death toll since February — 293 — on Tuesday.

While new cases have been dropping from around 46,000 a day in October, infection rates in Britain are still much higher than in most of Europe.

Van-Tam said the drop in case numbers mainly reflected the ebbing of a surge recently seen among teenagers. He warned that while hospital admissions have plateaued and total numbers of patients in hospitals have slightly gone down, the overall picture was still worrying.

«This could be a pause before things go up, it could be the very first signs that things are beginning to stabilize but at a high rate,» he said. «But my worry is that the deaths are increasing and that shows that the infection is now starting to penetrate into those older age groups.»

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The U.K. got a head-start in rolling out its vaccination program, and most adults have been fully inoculated. A booster shot is being offered to millions, including everyone over 50. But the government has been cautious about vaccinating teenagers and younger people, authorizing jabs for healthy children between 12 to 15 years old only this September.

Jeremy Brown, a member of the government’s vaccination advisory committee, said it was «far too early» to follow the lead of the United States in vaccinating children 11 years old and under.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government lifted almost all coronavirus restrictions in July, including mandatory face coverings and social distancing requirements. Nightclubs and crowded venues were allowed to fully open and the work from home advice was scrapped.

Authorities have resisted calls to reimpose restrictions like mandatory mask-wearing, and are instead relying heavily on vaccines to keep infections down.