Two years on from Britain being plunged into lockdown, Newcastle's Director of Public Health has warned that we need to remain cautious about Covid.
But Prof Eugene Milne also said that we should apply that caution to other infections like flu or norovirus too.
Prof Milne, Newcastle's soon-to-retire Director of Public Health, has been a visible presence helping to lead the city's efforts to combat Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, and speaking to ChronicleLive he warned that the virus was still out there and cases due to the BA.2 Omicron variant continued to rise.
However he said it would only be time to seriously worry if the pressure on hospitals began to translate into high levels of admission to intensive care wards - or if another Covid-19 variant is discovered.
Read more: Newcastle City Council 'steps down' Covid alert level, but will remain 'vigilant and prepared'
"I'm always conscious that it's terribly difficult to make predictions", he said. "Covid is again putting some pressure on the hospital system but I think it's manageable right now and I would expect [BA.2] to burn through the population at some point.
"People who are getting Omicron will get it and then at least have some further level of protection. There's a point where it will start to run out of people.
"We will know in the next few weeks I think. But yes, I would encourage people, particularly if they are going to be coming into contact with those who might be vulnerable, to take precautions and wear masks.
"When I'd really start to worry would be if we started to see an increase in ITU use. At the moment the mortality levels are lower than we have seen throughout and these things are not causing alarm. A new variant would though - though I don't think we have seen much sign of that yet."
Prof Milne said that lessons from around the world - including Hong Kong where Covid has surged in an area which had previously kept it at bay, causing a high death rate especially in unvaccinated and elderly groups - showed how important remaining vigilant was. And he said it highlighted the importance of getting Covid-19 vaccines when they are offered too.
"For someone who has not been vaccinated, it's still a really dangerous disease. You can see that in, for example, what's happening in Hong Kong. There's a lesson to be learned there with harder-to-reach groups. I would like to see that outreach to harder to reach groups as these people are less likely to receive other vaccines we need to get to them, not just flu but also childhood vaccines."
Prof Milne also urged members of the public to continue to take Covid-19 seriously, and said he hoped that some of the caution shown throughout the pandemic in terms of taking precautions to prevent passing on a disease to those who are more vulnerable would be applied to other diseases.
He said: "I would encourage people, particularly if they are going to be coming into contact with those who might be vulnerable, to take precautions and wear masks. Even vaccinated people in key groups are still going to be more vulnerable. One of the things about progressing beyond Covid is that we should be saying that these are precautions we should take with any respiratory or infectious disease or something like norovirus.
"Be aware and minimise the risk to vulnerable people. We were always going to have to to some degree normalise Covid and move it back into the range where it's just one of the health threats we have to deal with."
Looking back at two years of Covid-19, Prof Milne said the virus's ability to spread had confounded predictions.
"I think one thing to reflect on is how we had these early expectations that that we would be able to manage Covid in the way that we managed other infectious diseases previously," he said. "Of course we have always had infectious disease health protection teams, but this proved very different.
"Covid - and particularly Omicron - has proved to be incredibly infective. It spread at a rate of knots even with measures in place. And looking back to the beginning of the pandemic it's particularly clear that it was in circulation in Newcastle and in the country more generally before we had seen it."
Prof Milne also said innovations such as the Covid-19 vaccines - and in particular MRNA technology - had made a huge difference in the fight against Covid-19, and paid tribute to the way in which the public had reacted to the threat of the virus. "The massive transformative thing has been the incredible progress made with the vaccines in such a short space of time. That very much exceeded our expectations.
"And the public willingness to take action to prevent the spread of the virus has been remarkable. I think if asked at the outset if the UK population would have been willing to put up with this for two years, people would have been very very doubtful. But people actually really pulled together."
Newcastle has often seen lower than expected numbers of "excess deaths" than in other similar areas of the country, and while paying tribute to the way the people in the city and local institutions had pulled together, he said it was important to note the devastating impact.
"We still have had more deaths than we would have had, it's important to remember that," he said. "Many people have suffered, many have or will suffer from Long Covid. And the impact on people's mental health during the pandemic has been very significant. This will all be part of Covid's legacy - and it will make it very difficult for us over a number of years."
The public health chief spoke of how the work required to improve health disparities both in the North East and nationally had been thrown into stark relief by the pandemic. He said: "When you look at the way in which Covid has affected communities - and of course the way things worked out through the lockdowns, the people most likely to be exposed were the people most likely to become seriously ill.
"There's a real gradient. If you are at the lower end of the pay scale you are less likely to be able to work from home - and it all adds up. We have seen health inequalities play out in real time."
The other thing Prof Milne wanted to highlight was the "extraordinary job" done by the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust.
"The mortality rate has been amongst the very best in the country, and I think perhaps it helped that they had the first Covid patients and so very early experience but I think they also made a lot of good decisions along the way.
"The collaboration between the Trust and representatives from around the city has also been terrific. I have never seen level of collaboration like in this city over the past two years. I think that's all really helped but of course simply the clinical quality of services has also been amazing."
Of course, the Government has during February and March reduced and now completely removed Covid-19 restrictions - and from April 1 the UK's testing infrastructure will be radically scaled back. Prof Milne took a thoughtful stance on this. He said "rationally there was always going to come a point" where the Government was going to make this decision - adding: "And that was always going to be an incredibly difficult call to make. Whenever it was made there were always going to be some saying it was too soon and some saying it wasn't soon enough.
"We have to watch what happens. The things that really would worry me are if intensive care pressures continue to climb or a if a new variant develops. Those are the things that might make you think 'let's rethink'."
