Nick Triggle did his version of the article @martinmckee & I wrote in the Guardian about how UK has much higher case rates (& death rates) than West & North Europe...
Of course there are different views, but here are some areas I see differently... 1/9
bbc.co.uk/news/health-58…
That Europe is doing "vaccine plus" - high vax coverage and some measures such as masks indoors, school mitigations, covid passports is the entire point- it works much better than "vaccine just" in keeping cases (and all their bad consequences) down
And...
2/9
not clear that contact rates are higher here than in Europe - contacts in Europe are SAFER because they've take additional precautions.
In fact SAGE says we are still not close to pre pandemic contact rates in England. Many do not feel able to "be normal" due to high cases. 3/9
The gap in deaths is lower than the gap in cases - but that is partly reflecting higher cases in Europe a month or so ago but deaths are still quite a lot higher here than there.
The flu analogy isn't quite right as Martin explained here:
4/9
Long Covid *is* a real concern - the recent paper comparing it to flu showed it's 50% more common after Covid than flu. AND covid cases are WAY higher than flu.
We are already seeing the impact of summer cases on increases in long covid in England - particularly the young. 5/9
Nick - rightly - says there needs to be a debate about what is an "acceptable" level of Covid. I def agree. But we're not having that debate! Instead the narrative is that where we is fine and inevitable.
Our article was raising other options. Let's have the debate! 6/9
All of Europe inc UK is almost 100% Delta. Variants are not behind current differences and it's not that the UK surge will inevitably move to Europe. The difference between us is policy.
Also - many of us are concerned about high Covid rates in children *for children*. 7/9
We might see falling cases soon as boosters, teen vax and immunity from high infection have an effect - but at the cost of hundreds of thousands more infections & their consequences before then vs what we could have had.
I def agree with Nick that NHS is in tricky position. 8/9
Finally - Nick has a little dig at us "self-appointed group of experts". We are an independent group and we are also experts. Esp @martinmckee is a world leading public health academic - advising govts all over world & WHO + president elect of BMA. I'm lucky to work with him. 9/9
PS here is our original Guardian article
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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