Covid Juno variant poses new year threat and UK in middle of wave, warns expert
The "war of attrition" with Covid is only set to go on, one expert has warned, as the JN.1 subvariant looks set to continue to spread this new year.
Into 2024, as the temperatures plunge towards freezing and after Brits enjoyed mixing and mingling over the festive period, there are concerns that Covid rates could be set to rise. Even with a recent dip in rates, some experts have cautioned they could head up once more.
And with the country in such an "unprecedented" situation following the pandemic and fallout ever since, Professor Danny Altmann has told the Mirror that Brits are far from out of the woods. From the ever present threat of Long Covid, as recently shown by the tragic death of Derek Draper, to an increasingly politicised debate, and new variants and subvariants, the virus that brought the world grounding to a halt is far from finished.
The Professor of Immunology was studying viruses years before politicians and the media took an interest in the family of coronaviruses. He said that recent mixing and cold weather over Christmas will likely lead to an increase in cases.
He told the Mirror: "We’re in a very very long war of attrition, what we're in for is more of the same, because we didn't know much about this kind of Coronavirus three, four years ago and people were predicting it would get milder and milder and run out of steam.
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"If it’s an arms race between us and the virus we're clearly slowly winning that arms race in the sense that deaths and hospitalisations and trauma looks much less bad now than in 2020. On the other hand some people would say the virus is still winning the guerrilla campaign, it’s still in all those lungs around the world - you’re telling me that five per cent of every person in Britain would have it in their lungs at this moment in time and every single one of those virus copies has the potential to mutate away from vaccine protection, what kind of victory is that?”
One professor warned the battle with Covid would be a long one (stock image) (Getty Images)It isn’t clear whether the ongoing wave, fuelled by the highly mutated subvariant JN.1, is only just beginning, or falling away but Professor Altmann, like other experts, thinks the wave is likely set to continue, and repeated previous warnings that these waves were the new normal.
However, amongst efforts to deal with ongoing effects of Covid, its many variants and subvariants, and Long Covid, the debate around Covid has become increasingly politicised and a victim of wars of ideology that wrack British politics.
Professor Altmann said: "I think that behaviourally we're in such a difficult and unprecedented situation aren't we. On the one hand we've been through this global trauma over the last four years with such a high burden and death toll and human experience, and it's really difficult isn't it, our response has become very split along some kind of behavioural and political and ideological line.
"This is very strange for viral infection, between the people who are still worried about it and scared, the people who are still thinking about their policy on mixing and masks and people who are very libertarian and are like 'what’re you doing? How’re you letting it rule your life?' and I think the point for people like me who have spent their whole life in viral immunology, is that I don’t see it as some ideological thing. I just see it as viruses are scary and this one is still in people's lungs all over the world."
The debate around Covid has shifted from an immunological one to a political one over the pandemic and beyond (stock image) (Getty Images)This strange politicisation, which is playing out in real time in the Covid inquiry, has taken such a hold that the professor "we’re too far past" going back now, having left immunological sciences for political science.
He added: "The bottom line is, we've had this slightly false dichotomy between different sides where it's like are you for Covid vigilance, or are you for rebuilding the economy, as if those are polar opposites, which is simply a false dichotomy. Countries who are bad at dealing with Covid and addressing Covid, have economies that suffer, people are knocked out of work by their poor health and stuff. Countries that are good at addressing are good at rebuilding their economies, they go hand-in-hand, not opposites."
However, the harsh reality of Covid for almost two million Brits was brought back into the headlines recently with the tragic death of Derek Draper, after suffering from Long Covid.
Around 1.9million Brits are believed to suffer from Long Covid, with around one in five saying it has severely affected them. But with every new case of the virus there is a chance of someone suffering from Long Covid. Professor Altmann warned that the latest Omicron wave left around an estimated 7,000 people with Long Covid.
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