Before we had vaccines, there were few if any weapons in the fight against Covid-19. But there was one that could at least help reduce your risk of picking up the virus — fresh air. According to research released late last year by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), a well-ventilated room can … Read more
The UK today confirmed another 20 Covid deaths and 2,474 infections, as SAGE advisers U-turned on their grisly third wave estimates and slashed predictions for next year’s death toll by a factor of 10. Positive tests were up a quarter on last Tuesday (27 per cent) and the daily average has now been rising for … Read more
The Indian Covid variant that is surging in Britain could spread up to 60 per cent faster than the dominant Kent strain, a scientist has claimed. Professor Tom Wenseleers, a biologist and biostatistician at the KU Leuven university in Belgium, said on Twitter he had analysed how the two strains compared and found the Indian … Read more
Mathematical modellers who advise SAGE have dramatically downgraded their bleak predictions of more than 100,000 further Covid deaths within the next year and a third wave of the virus to rival the first two. Their total death toll projection – which is shown to the Prime Minister and has previously been criticised for being too … Read more
Don’t hug too often, keep embraces short and avoid face-to-face contact, is the message from No10’s cautious scientific advisers ahead of the next major relaxation of Covid rules. Boris Johnson will announce England’s next steps out of lockdown at a 5pm Downing Street press conference today, where he is expected to confirm that friends and … Read more
Big events of 50 people or more could be more Covid safe than modest parties of 10 to 20 people, according to SAGE scientists. People don’t actually mix with a lot of people at large gatherings and only rarely go to them so experts say they may not pose much risk of transmission. But smaller … Read more
Professor Stephen Reicher said passports wouldn’t be needed if everyone was jabbed Green-lighting domestic Covid vaccine passports would be an admission by ministers that the jab rollout is destined to fail, a Government scientist warned today. Professor Stephen Reicher, a top social psychologist who sits on SAGE, said forcing people to produce jab certificates to … Read more
Professor Stephen Reicher said passports wouldn’t be needed if everyone was jabbed Green-lighting domestic Covid vaccine passports would be an admission by ministers that the jab rollout is destined to fail, a Government scientist warned today. Professor Stephen Reicher, a top social psychologist who sits on SAGE, said forcing people to produce jab certificates to … Read more
Even Professor Neil Ferguson is now optimistic that vaccines will squash the UK’s third wave of Covid and life in Britain will ‘feel a lot more normal by the summer’. The SAGE adviser and Imperial College London epidemiologist, whose sobering death toll predictions led Britain into its first lockdown last year, said today that he expects the … Read more
More than 100,000 worshippers attended the Lag B’Omer festival in Israel despite reports from 2008 and 2011 warning it posed a ‘danger to human life’ and that the capacity shouldn’t exceed 15,000. Ex-comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, who wrote a report from 13 years ago, said safety features were lacking in preventing overcrowding and that the site … Read more