The UK can see the “light at the end of the tunnel” in its fight against coronavirus as cases continue to fall, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said.
Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s special envoy for coronavirus, said the outlook was hopeful but warned the road out of the pandemic would still be “bumpy” in the coming months.
He told Sky News: “Looking at it from a UK point of view, there does appear to be light at the end of the tunnel… I think that it’s going to be bumpy before we get to the end.
“So even though it’s possible to start imagining that the end of the pandemic is not far away, just everybody be ready for the possibility that there will be more variations and mutations coming along, or that there will be further challenges, other surges of even Omicron coming.”
He said children do not get very ill from coronavirus, and “we’re going to have children acting as vectors of the virus for some time to come.”
However, he stressed there was a need to still be “respectful of this virus”, adding: “Do what you can to stop transmitting it. Do what you can to protect others from being affected by it. It’s not the common cold.
“I know people would like it to be but it’s a virus that has still some really unpleasant features. Let’s do our best to protect people from it if we possibly can.”
His comments came as a scientist advising the Government said that the most recent case data indicated the Omicron wave was “turning around”.
Prof Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), said that the latest case figures were “cautiously good news” and he hoped the country may have a “flu-type” relationship with the virus by the end of the year.
The latest data shows a 38 per cent drop over the last seven days across the UK in the numbers testing positive for the virus, with 70,924 new cases reported on Sunday.
Prof Tildesley told BBC Breakfast “it does look like across the whole of the country cases do seem to be falling”, adding: “We have had very, very high case numbers throughout late December and early January – we peaked about 200,000 at one point.
“We do now seem to be a little bit beyond that. Hospital admissions are still relatively high albeit there is some evidence that maybe they’re plateauing or possibly going down in London, which is cautiously good news.”
