Will a second coronavirus surge lead to winter lockdown? Ministers told to prepare for another wave – Armenian Reporter

Ministers have been told to prepare for a surge in coronavirus cases this winter that could trigger a second national lockdown.
The Governments scientific advisers will have strong evidence that the herpes virus flourishes at an optimal temperature of around 4C (39F).
They say this, along with annual pressures on the NHS due to seasonal flu, means the united kingdom is heading for a difficult winter.
Last night, one senior official said: We can get away with a lot at this time because it is summer.
Ministers have been told to prepare for a surge in coronavirus cases this winter that could trigger a second national lockdown (file photo of a ward at Royal Liverpool University Hospital)
It is really important that people get ready for the challenges that winter will undoubtedly bring.
Ministers are aiming to manage any resurgence of the virus through local lockdowns, such as the one imposed in Leicester a week ago.
But a senior official said: If the overall numbers increase, then I would expect to have to reimpose some national measures.
The official added that the Governments much-maligned test and trace strategy should be working absolutely faultlessly by the autumn.
Another lockdown would have devastating economic consequences. It may possibly also hamper Boris Johnsons plans for all children to return to school even though experts on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have stressed reopening schools should really be a priority.
Officials said that it’s significant that the city of Melbourne in Australia, where it is currently winter, had to impose a second lockdown on its five million residents this week.
Ministers are aiming to manage any resurgence of the virus through local lockdowns, such as the one imposed in Leicester, pictured above, last week
The virus survives longer at colder temperatures and folks are more likely to gather indoors throughout winter, which increases the threat of transmission. Yesterday, Sage published figures showing the coronavirus outbreak remains shrinking in the united kingdom, but only very slowly. The reproduction rate the average amount of people each Covid-19 patient infects is between 0.7 and 0.9 as a whole for the UK, meaning it hasnt changed in almost 8 weeks.
However, the R rate for England is between 0.8 and 1, up from between 0.8 and 0.9 a week ago.
Office for National Statistics data shows about 14,000 people in England actually have the virus.
But boffins say they might like to push how many new infections much lower ahead of the winter to increase the UKs ability to cope with a second wave.
Professor James Naismith, from the University of Oxford, said: These numbers also tell us that we are unlikely to eliminate the virus from the UK before the winter. In any event, the virus has become global. Without a vaccine, we have to plan for its presence.
Latest coronavirus video news, views and qualified advice at mailplus.co.uk/coronavirus
TB jab could possibly offer corona protection
A tuberculosis vaccine that was given to 1000s of British young ones also protects against Covid, a study found.
Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) was produced in 1924 and given to all teenagers in the united kingdom from 1953 to 2005. The vaccinations stopped when TB a bacterial lung illness was effectively eliminated.
Researchers in the US studied countries which have different degrees of the BCG jab and found a link between its prevalence and the Covid-19 death rate.
In countries with a 10 % higher prevalence of the jab, there clearly was a 10.4 % reduction in coronavirus deaths.
This shows that in the UK, adults aged between 30 and 80 have been given the vaccine at school could have a greater level of protection. The researchers, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the National Institutes of Health, considered social, economic, and demographic differences between countries.
BCG remains widely used all over the world but in Britain only at-risk individuals, such as for instance babies managing infected family members, are given the jab.

Click here to view the original article.