Name: Lockdown could be eased early says UK scientific adviser- BBC News
Uploaded: 2021-02-18T18:32:14.000Z
Duration: 8 min 47 s
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the success of the vaccination program has made it possible to consider lifting the covert restrictions at an earlier stage, according to one of the government's scientific advisers.

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Professor Mark Will, House of the University of Edinburgh, told a parliamentary committee at Westminster that there were reasons to be more optimistic because there was more confidence in the scientific data compared to last year.

But other government advisers sounded a far more cautious note on the prime minister.

Boris Johnson said he was taking a data, not dates approach which would go in stages, He said to announce his plans next Monday for easing the lock down in England are.

Health editor Hugh Pym has the latest hello.

It'll be one of the most difficult decisions he has to make at what speed to start easing the lock down in England.

The prime minister's hoping the rapid rollout of vaccinations will help for his plan to be unveiled on Monday.

It'll be based firmly on a cautious and prudent approach, Thio coming out of lock down in such a way as to the irreversible.

So what do experts think about when restrictions Willie's schools in England could start reopening in 2.5 weeks time.

But families and businesses want to know what else might open up and when.

Today one expert was optimistic, based on vaccine numbers and falling cases.

My conclusion from that is, if you're driven by the data and not by dates right now, you should be looking at earlier unlocking because the data is so good, you're muted on speaking to the same Commons committee.

It won't be completely normal, but things will start to look much more normal by spring.

MPs were also told scenes like this on some British beaches last summer.

Some people thought there was an outcry about this.

There were no outbreaks linked to crowded beaches, has never seen a covert 19 outbreak linked to a beach ever anywhere in the world.

The number of daily reported cases was very low last summer.

Then it picked up in the autumn and really surged in January to reach a peak before falling back sharply.

But there's still a lot of pressure on the NHS.

The number of patients in hospitals on ventilators is still only just below the peak last April.

That's even with doctors less inclined to use ventilators for patients this time.

There's agreement that the program has gone very well so far.

But there was a warning there was a lot more work to do to ensure sufficient community protection.

Don't unlock too fast because if you unlock a lot, waas, a lot of the most vulnerable are still unvaccinated, genuine way risk.

It is asked quite on what role is there for mass testing.

There's been talk of lateral flow kits giving rapid results being sent out to households and workplaces as lock down is eased.

But there was a note of caution about their use.

Where we've used the most successfully, I have to say, is where they've been self tests, but in a semi supervised environment.

So there's somebody there to take the results.

The Scottish government will next week announced its plan for moving out of lock down.

A sharp fall in deaths amongst the over 80 fives in recent weeks was the first hard evidence of the positive impact of vaccination.

Now, in the first trial of its kind in the world, dozens of young and healthy volunteers all carefully selected between 18 and 30 years of age will be exposed to the coronavirus in a safe controlled environment.

The study will begin in the UK in a matter of weeks following approval from the clinical trials.

Ethics body on Scientists hope it'll give them a deeper understanding of the virus.

Our medical editor, Fergus Walsh, has more analysis.

Okay, This is where trial volunteers will spend just over two weeks in on suite rooms at the top of the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

There's quite a view on all meals provided, but the stay includes being deliberately infected with coronavirus.

The aim is to find the smallest possible dose that will trigger an infection.

We believe the risk on this trial is incredibly small because they are young, healthy adults.

But we're doing everything we can to make sure we're monitoring it on mitigating it.

Future trials will be used for head to head comparisons between different vaccines on how well, they work.

But this initial study should also yield important information about co vid in no other kind of study.

Can you understand what was happening right at the beginning of the infection?

How much virus comes out of people's noses and, most importantly, amongst asymptomatic people who we think are important contributor to transmission in the community?

The volunteers who do spend 17 days here at the Royal Free Hospital Onda tend their follow up Blood tests over the course of a year will be compensated to the tune of 4.5 £1000.

Alistair is 18 and has already signed up.

He's been campaigning for the trials to take place as a means of speeding up research into vaccines on the virus.

I think challenge trials are really they are going to shorten the pandemic.

Actually, anything that we continue to shorten the pandemic is it's so unbelievably worth doing, so it is kind of I guess it's that which is really drive Challenge trials have a long history.

In this study in Oxford, volunteers drank a solution laced with typhoid bacteria to test whether a vaccine they've had protected them.

It's an approach that should help find new co vid vaccines and treatments in years to come.

News Have a look at the latest official figures now.

Then they show that there were 12,780 new infections recorded in the latest 24 hour period.

An average of 12,289 new cases were recorded per day in the past week.

Just over 21 0 people are in hospital with coronavirus across the U.

The last 24 hours, 738 deaths have been recorded.

That's people who died within 28 days of a positive covert test.

That number is almost a third lower than at this time last week.

On average, 583 deaths were announced every day in the past week, and the total number of people have died is 118 0, 933.

Look at the vaccinations because almost 365,000 people had their first dose of one of the three approved vaccines in the latest 24 hour period on.

That means just under 16 million people have now had their first jab.

Talked to our deputy political editor, Vicky Young, um, the prime minister today that he's saying that this is all about data on.

They're saying the data is looking rather good as far as he's concerned.

Well, I think every time it gets in front of the camera, you hear the word caution.

I think there's an awful lot of expectation management going on because they're really trying to balance the very good news about this vaccination program alongside, uh, the idea that you unlock too quickly.

So what they're talking about here is reopening in stages.

We know schools will be at the beginning off that process.

But I think what's interesting is that in the short term, if you like, but ministers also in Whitehall, discussing the longer term some other issues, really, of how we live with coronavirus for quite some time, that could mean that mass testing is with us for some months, if not years in schools in workplaces.

But there's ethical issues that they're wrestling with.

What of employer says that everyone who works them has to have a vaccination?

How might people be able to prove that they've been vaccinated in order to travel?

All of that is in the longer term, but no doubt about it.

That approach is gonna irritate many people, including some off his own MPs.

But I don't think he's going to change his mind.

 Think young there for us with the latest at Westminster. 