BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) According to foreign media reports, the British government recently announced the details of the final phase of the "unblocking" plan in England, so that the economy can be restarted as soon as possible. However, at present, the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 is still high. More than 100 scientists and medical experts recently published an open letter in the authoritative medical journal The Lancet, criticizing the authorities for lifting all restrictions, which is like conducting a "dangerous and immoral experiment".
On July 5, local time, British Prime Minister David Boris Johnson announced a series of measures to unblock the next stage at the press conference of the Prime Minister’s Office, including: the restrictions on the number of indoor and outdoor parties in England were cancelled; The bar reopened; The requirement to keep a social distance of one meter was cancelled; Masks are not mandatory, and the rules for working at home are cancelled. The government will evaluate these measures in a week and finally decide whether to implement them from the 19th of this month.
In this regard, as many as 122 scientists and medical experts, including the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the British Medical Association, the head of SAGE, and scientists from Oxford University and University College London, signed an open letter criticizing the decision to lift the epidemic prevention restrictions as "hasty and immature" and saying that any strategy that can tolerate high levels of infection is "illogical".
Nagpaul said that the number of confirmed cases in Britain is soaring. Although the relationship between confirmed cases and hospitalization and death has weakened, it has not been cut off. At present, the number of patients who need to be hospitalized and use ventilators due to Covid-19 infection has doubled compared with the same period of last month. He also mentioned that about 1 in 10 patients had sequelae of "long new crown", and as many as 2 million people still felt unwell after more than three months, but the government deliberately played down the seriousness of "long new crown".
"We know that masks can effectively prevent the spread, so it is absurd and dangerous for the government to cancel the mandatory wearing of masks in indoor public places such as public transportation from July 19."
Many joint experts are very worried about the issue of "long new crown", pointing out that its impact can last for months or even years. Strang, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter and a coronavirus researcher, said that many people in the scientific community urged Dzhavid, the new British health minister, to consider the long-term Covid-19 problem when evaluating the unsealing.
Dr. Gu Erda Sani, a senior lecturer and epidemiologist at Queen Mary University, said: "The government intends to expose children to large-scale infections, not to protect them or vaccinate them in schools." This is immoral and unacceptable. "Our young people have suffered so much in the past year, and now they have to bear the consequences of this dangerous experiment."
Horton, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, supported the opinion of the co-signers, pointing out that contrary to what the British government scientists said, there is still no consensus on the comprehensive lifting of epidemic prevention measures in Britain, and many scientists are opposed to the decision. "Many scientists are very worried that the proportion of people who have completed vaccination is not ideal at present, and the infection rate is rising rapidly. We are at a very dangerous moment of pandemic."
Corey, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, believes that it is too early to claim that it can coexist with the virus. Delaying the lifting of restrictions will give the authorities more time to stop the spread of the virus, including vaccinating people with booster vaccines and injecting children.
On July 7th, local time, WHO held a regular press conference in COVID-19. Michael Ryan, the head of WHO’s health emergency project, said that countries should be extra careful now. Although the number of hospitalizations and new deaths in many countries began to decrease, the number of new cases increased in many regions around the world last week. In Europe, for example, the number of new cases increased by 33%.
Ryan stressed that the current epidemic curve is not flat, but in a state of growth, and it cannot be wrongly assumed that the spread of the virus will not increase again. Ryan called on governments all over the world to hold on to the achievements made in fighting the epidemic and open their societies cautiously.
关于作者