Good morning. It never feels like a quiet time in the news at the moment, and today is no exception: ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, the fallout from an unprecedented election result in Northern Ireland, the “Beergate” controversy – and the list goes on.
Even so, it’s remarkable how quickly Covid-19 has slipped from the agenda. Two years ago a tickle in your throat or a mild temperature was enough to send most people spiralling. Now, a combination of a robust vaccination programme and effective testing measures has meant that in the UK things seem to be inching “back to normal” (whatever that means).
At the same time, though, coronavirus is still lingering in the background, causing heartache and hardship, and disrupting our daily lives. To find out exactly where we are in the pandemic, I spoke to Hannah Devlin, the Guardian’s science correspondent. First, here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Ukraine | 60 people are feared dead after an airstrike on a Ukrainian school being used as a bomb shelter. The attack was part of an intensified Russian onslaught ahead of today’s symbolic Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.
Cost of living crisis | More than two million adults in the UK have gone without food for a whole day over the past month, according to a survey on the “catastrophic” impact of the cost of living crisis.
Northern Ireland | The Democratic Unionist party will stall power-sharing at Stormont if the Northern Ireland protocol is not modified, its leaders will tell Boris Johnson. The move comes after Sinn Féin became the largest party at the assembly for the first time.
‘Beergate’ | Labour denied that a leaked internal memo showing an evening meal in Durham had been pre-planned was evidence Keir Starmer had broken lockdown laws. Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, called Starmer “Mr Rules”.
Television | Jodie Comer and Matthew Macfadyen were among the winners at Sunday’s television Baftas, along with BBC prison drama Time. The acclaimed Channel 4 series It’s A Sin was surprisingly ignored in every category.
In depth: How close are we to beating Covid?
For all intents and purposes, and for most people, it would be fair to say it feels like the pandemic is over. Mask mandates, lockdowns, even self-isolation – these restrictions on our behaviour now seem like relics from a bygone era. But viral respiratory diseases don’t cease to exist just because we want them to: 2 February marked the highest daily rise of Covid deaths in over a year, a month after all restrictions were dropped. So what are the numbers – and more importantly – what do they mean in a time when the general consensus is that we must “live with Covid”?
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Infection rates are stable … for now
Overall, infection and hospitalisation rates seem to have returned to where they were before the BA.2 variant of Omicron became more widespread. However, there is a tension, Hannah says, between where we are as a society and where we are as individuals when it comes to Covid rates: “We’re in this sort of strange in-between stage where, for most individuals, Covid is not the severe risk to health that it once was.” According to data analysed by the Financial Times, the majority of people infected with Covid-19 are now at a marginally lower risk of dying than people who catch the seasonal flu.
But when we look at the bigger picture things become less clear. “[Covid] doesn’t quite sit yet within our normal range of winter illnesses. We’re still experiencing these huge waves of infection,” Hannah says. Even though it looks like the worst of the pandemic is over, at least in terms of severe illness and death, another surge could put further pressure on an already strained NHS, which was pushed to its limits during the other waves of the pandemic.
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Death rates dictate the road ahead
A rise in infection rates was expected once all restrictions and guidance ended at the end of February, but it is death rates that ultimately seem to determine how the government responds to the pandemic. In total, more than 175,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the UK since the outbreak of the virus, while the WHO says there have been nearly 15 million excess deaths worldwide.
At the height of the pandemic, the death toll was more than 1,000 deaths on average each day. Now, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, the daily count stands at just over a fifth of that number, with Covid now the sixth-leading cause of death in the UK (it was the leading cause of death for several months in 2020 and 2021). That is clearly a significant change, achieved despite the end of all restrictions and the seeming infeasibility of a zero-Covid strategy. “We’ve seen from the lockdowns – achieving zero Covid comes at an impossibly high price at this point,” Hannah tells me.
However, that is still more than 200 deaths a day from Covid in the UK. While vaccines and education have changed the Covid crisis for the better, there’s an almost inevitable desensitisation to the mortality rates. As we move from pandemic to epidemic, the government – and the country more broadly – has decided the goal is mitigation and management rather than eradication.
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The future of vaccines
It would be understandable to assume that research on Covid-19 vaccines is largely over – or at the very least not as urgent as it once was. There’s good reason to think this: overall, the vaccination programme in this country has worked well – 93% of people over the age of 12 have had one dose, 87% have had two, and 58% have had a booster, too.
But that is only part of the picture. Globally, there is still huge vaccine inequality – as of April, only 15.2% of populations in low-income countries have received one dose of the vaccine.
As Covid continues to run rampant in certain parts of the world, with numbers on the rise in countries including South Africa and India, the threat of a variant that could escape immunity still exists. So, what happened to the variant-specific vaccines? The short answer is that the pharmaceutical industry is still working on it.
“Companies are pushing ahead with their variant vaccines – Moderna has been successful, targeting the release by autumn for their Omicron vaccine,” says Hannah. “The idea is that it’s supposed to give double immunity”. It is, she adds, “an evolving picture”. The reason why there seems to be less urgency than at the start of the pandemic is that, ultimately, the vaccines we have are still good at preventing severe disease and death.
Broader vaccines that target multiple variants and, hopefully, future strains are also in development, as is a nasal spray which is supposed to prevent people from catching Covid in the first place (to learn more about them, take a look at this explainer by Ian Sample). Realistically, it looks like these boosters will be limited to those who are older or are clinically vulnerable – which begs the question, what about everyone else?
It’s hard to predict the future when it comes to an ever-shifting and mutating virus, and researchers are still learning about it. “It’s not clear what that landscape will look like, because we’re still learning about how immunity wanes over time,” says Hannah. “Until we know that, we can’t really predict what proportion of the population will need boosters and what will be fine.”
While everyone from Boris Johnson to Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has declared that the pandemic is over, that doesn’t feel true for everyone. “More than three million people in the UK are clinically vulnerable, and some of these people don’t respond well to vaccines,” Hannah explains. “Those people feel like they’re left behind, they don’t feel politically important. It must be particularly dreadful to see everyone going back to normal but you can’t – everyone seems to have forgotten you.”
There are still many question marks around what “living with Covid” means for our futures. What’s clear, however, is if we want to continue enjoying our renewed freedom, we can’t simply pretend that the virus that changed the world two short years ago has now disappeared.
Sport
Football | Chelsea secured a third consecutive Women’s Super League title on the final day of the season, pipping Arsenal to the trophy after twice coming from behind for a thrilling 4-2 victory against Manchester United.
Football | Manchester City thrashed Newcastle United 5-0 to open up a three point lead over Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table. Liverpool had only been able to draw 1-1 with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday evening.
Formula One | Max Verstappen came from behind to win the Miami grand prix, pipping Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to the chequered flag.
What else we’ve been reading
Only a fool would think Sinn Féin’s success in the Northern Ireland assembly elections means a united Ireland is imminent, writes Fintan O’Toole – but “only a bigger fool would think that it has not, in some form, come closer”. Archie
Meanwhile, results in England, Scotland, and Wales which you might have expected to spell the end for Boris Johnson have instead been overshadowed by the ‘Beergate’ story about Keir Starmer. Gaby Hinsliff sees it as an attempt to “deflect from the sleaze by suggesting that everyone else was at it too”. Archie
Comic Sofie Hagen hilariously chronicles the uphill battle of her two and a half journey to becoming an influencer. Nimo
Daniel Boffey meets the residents of a Kyiv nursing home who remember the second world war, and must now contend with a new existential conflict. “Throughout my life, I was fine with Russians,” says Valentyna Lits, 94. “Now, I am filled with hate.” Archie
Fox News has been the subject of liberal fury for decades. Observer columnist Nick Cohen argues compellingly that the channel disseminates Kremlin-style propaganda – so why not freeze the assets of its owner, Rupert Murdoch? Nimo
The front pages
The Guardian leads with “More than 2m Britons can’t afford to eat every day” and the Mirror is also concerned about the cost of living in its lead: “Direct debit bills hell”. It also pays tribute to the late Dennis Waterman on its front, and the death of the Minder star is the lead in the Sun: “You were so good for us, Dennis”. The Mail calls the actor a “rough diamond and charmer” on its front page but its main story is “Rattled Starmer snubs the chance to clear air”. The Times leads with “Bonfire of EU laws in bid to boost economy”, and the i reports “UK threatens to tear up Brexit deal within weeks”. The Telegraph goes with Ben Wallace’s broadside at the Kremlin: “Putin is mirroring Nazis, says Wallace” and the Express claims “Patients at risk! GPs cannot cope with workload pressures”. The main story for the FT is “US hits Gazprombank bosses as fresh sanctions focus on services”.
Today in Focus
The Division: New Orleans – part four
In the final episode of this miniseries, The Division begins to reinvestigate Kuantay Reeder’s case, discovering new evidence that could hold the key to his freedom.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The BBC has announced that Ncuti Gatwa will be taking over from Jodie Whitaker as Doctor Who’s 14th Doctor. The 29 year old Scot will be at the first Black actor to play the title role full time. Gatwa said: “There aren’t quite the words to describe how I’m feeling. A mix of deeply honoured, beyond excited and of course a little bit scared.”
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