COVID-19 restrictions: Why have they been lifted?

Are we becoming more immune to COVID-19? Is it getting less harmful? What is next for the pandemic? We asked members of the Vitality clinical team to shed some light.

Why have most COVID-19 restrictions been lifted?

Dr Anushka: Despite the high infection rate for COVID-19, the government decided to lift restrictions predominantly because of high vaccination levels in the UK. With the majority of the population receiving at least one vaccination alongside the ongoing roll-out of the booster programme, the government feels that we have enough immunity in the UK to prevent enough hospital admissions and bring down transmissions.

Are we becoming more immune to the virus or just better at fighting it?

Dr Harpreet: We had a very successful roll-out of our vaccination programme in this country and we’ve had over 16 million positive tests for COVID¹. This suggests we have a good level of immunity in the UK. However, we don’t know how long immunity lasts. We’ve also seen the need for a booster programme over the past few months because we saw immunity dropping and new variants, like Omicron. I do think, though, that we are moving in the right direction.

Is Omicron, or COVID-19 variants in general, becoming less harmful?

Dr Anushka: A paper published in Nature did suggest that COVID variants, such as Omicron and Delta, carry mutations that blunt the potency of antibodies in our cells against COVID-19 [which would weaken vaccine protection]². We believe it’s not that the variants are becoming less harmful, it’s just that our bodies are able to mount a stronger response as a result of memory developed from immunity and vaccination. We are seeing this result in lesser physical effects from the virus.

Is COVID-19 becoming ‘endemic’? If so, what does this mean?

Dr Harpreet: If we do move from a ‘pandemic’ to an ‘endemic’ phase, it doesn’t mean that COVID is all of a sudden harmless. For COVID it would mean that the virus is consistently present, more limited to an area and we can make predictions about its spread. I wouldn’t say we are at an endemic stage yet [because we cannot be certain about future variants], but we do hope this is the direction of travel. If we do arrive there, it will give us more hope around the possibility of normality around how we work, how we socialise and how we spend our time, as well as the pressure on healthcare resources and services.

What’s next for the pandemic?

Dr Anushka: It’s really hard to say what’s next for the pandemic. We’ve delivered more than 10 billion doses of the vaccine³ and that has helped shift the evolutionary landscape of the virus. It’s still not clear whether it will rise to this challenge and morph into more variants. Or how well we can continue to control its spread with vaccines and the public measures we do have in place. That aside, I believe we have learned so much from this pandemic. We’ve learned the concept of social distancing; to remind ourselves about ‘hands, face, space’ and the importance of washing our hands and hand hygiene. Equally, we’ve learned to live with wearing masks in crowded environments. I don’t think 2022 will see us no longer doing these things.

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Sources:
1. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03672-3
3. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
4. https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2021/11/08/covid-19-is-likely-to-fade-away-in-2022