New Coronavirus News from 4 Oct 2022

Covid-19 public inquiry opens amid anger from bereaved over testimony [The Guardian, 4 Oct 2022]

by Robert Booth

Chair Lady Hallett tells families upset their evidence will not be heard directly that they will be ‘at the heart’ of hearing

The bereaved will be “at the heart” of the Covid-19 public inquiry, its chair, Lady Hallett, has pledged at the first public hearing in the investigation into the UK’s handling of the pandemic, which the inquiry’s counsel described as an “unprecedented and vastly difficult undertaking”.

Opening the first module to a sprawling inquiry expected to run for several years, Hallett addressed anger from some of the bereaved that their testimonies may not be heard as direct evidence, by saying: “We shall ensure that those most affected, particularly the bereaved, will be properly consulted.”

But she said if they were consulted on every stage of the inquiry it “would go on forever”. She insisted her priority was to reach conclusions “before another disaster strikes the four nations of the United Kingdom” and would not allow the inquiry to “drag on for decades”.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group is upset Hallett is planning only a “listening exercise” to capture a cross-section of views among the hundreds of thousands of bereaved people in the UK. They want their evidence to be heard directly.

“There is a balance to be struck between making timely recommendations and the extent to which we explore every issue,” Hallett said.

Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, also said it would need to be “ruthless” in its focus.

It is already set to consider the performance of the public health system, care homes, lockdowns, schooling, children, minorities, mental health, the economy and border controls among other issues.

A communications company is being sought to handle the listening exercise, which some of the bereaved have described as an attempt to “outsource the grief of bereaved families”.

In previous public inquiries, such as those into the Grenfell Tower fire and Manchester Arena bombing, family and friends provided “pen portraits” of victims at the start of the formal hearings. However, the UK pandemic toll of 204,776 people with Covid on their death certificate, is far higher.

“We feel very strongly that this inquiry should be focusing on the impact on the bereaved families and to do that our voices need to be heard inside the inquiry and taken as evidence,” said Fran Hall, who lost her husband, Steve Mead, 65, to Covid in October 2020.

Matt Fowler, a co-founder of the group, whose father, Ian, died in hospital in April 2020, said: “Anything less [than hearing the bereaved’s stories directly] would be devastating for families like mine who have worked so tirelessly to get here and could cost lives in the future.”

Hallett used her opening remarks to argue the listening exercise would “ensure everyone across the UK who wishes to contribute to the inquiry can do so in a less formal setting … their contributions will inform the inquiry about the impact of the pandemic”. She denied anyone had been barred from giving evidence.

Keith said the listening exercise would take accounts from tens or hundreds of thousands of people, which would be “analysed and summarised before being provided to the inquiry teams and the core participants” as written evidence.

Pete Weatherby KC, representing the Covid-19 bereaved group, said the inquiry’s terms of reference were “to listen to and consider carefully the experiences of bereaved families”. But, he said the listening exercise, “as cast up to now, does not do this”. He said that it marginalises “the bereaved and their voices”.

Hallett responded: “There is absolutely no question that the bereaved will be marginalised and I really don’t want to hear that expression again.”

Before starting proceedings with a minute’s silence, Hallett said: “There is one word that sums up the pandemic for so many and that is the word loss … millions of people suffered loss, including the loss of friends and family members, the loss of good health both mental and physical, economic loss, the loss of educational opportunities and the loss of social interaction.

Those who were bereaved lost the most.”

The inquiry is divided into numerous modules to run in sequence. The first module, which opened on Tuesday, will examine the UK’s resilience and preparedness for the coronavirus pandemic. Evidence hearings will not start until next year.

Covid-19: New wave could begin before Xmas - modeller [New Zealand Herald, 4 Oct 2022]

By Jamie Morton

A Covid-19 modeller is urging eligible Kiwis to get boosted if they haven't been, amid the growing probability New Zealand could get another coronavirus wave before Christmas.

Professor Michael Plank told the Herald it was possible that wave – expected to come on the back of building surges in the Northern Hemisphere – might even compare with July's.

Cases and hospitalisations already appear to be on the rise in Denmark, Belgium and the UK.
In Germany, where reported cases tripled in three weeks to reach 96,000 on September 29, the country's federal minister of health Karl Lauterbach told media another wave had begun.

Plank said this could be because of a combination of factors, such as people in Europe heading back to school, waning immunity, and a raft of troublesome new Omicron sub-variants.

BA.5 descendant BQ.1.1 has been popping up around the world and indicating its own potential at evading immune antibodies – but it's so new that little is known about it.
Another sub-type, BA.2.75.2, makes up just 1 per cent of Covid-19 cases, but has now been detected in nearly 50 countries – including New Zealand.

It's thought to be nearly seven times tougher for our immune systems to block than BA.5 - and is now considered the most resistant variant seen yet.

Scientists have pinpointed two specific mutations that make it better able to latch onto our cells and infect us: even if we'd already been exposed to its relatives.

In one recent study, Chinese researchers estimated it to be, on average, more than six times more likely to reinfect someone who'd had BA.2 - and 2.7 times more likely to cause a reinfection in a person who'd had BA.5.

Another Swedish study has also indicated virus-fighting antibody levels may be five-fold lower against BA.2.75.2 than BA.5.

While ESR has tracked a slight uptick in New Zealand cases recently, there still wasn't any indication that new variants were already beginning to drive a fresh surge here.

While the removal of border testing had left the picture somewhat less clear, importantly, the latest surveillance data from wastewater sampling hadn't shown any tell-tale shifts in variant activity.

And across hospitals, the most recent sequencing data showed BA.5 making up 87 per cent of samples, followed by BA.4.6 (5 per cent), BA.4 (2 per cent), B.A2.75 (2 per cent) and BA.2 (2 per cent).

"But as these variants become more widespread, this could actually accelerate things a little bit," Plank said.

"So whatever happens in the Northern Hemisphere, I'd expect something similar to happen here – maybe in a matter of weeks."

It remained to be seen what effect open borders, dropped mandates and open borders would have in the next wave.

While increasingly warmer temperatures might play in our favour, Plank pointed out many Kiwis were no longer masking up.

"It's very difficult to predict, but it could be that we see something comparable with the recent July wave we had, in terms of the number of potential cases."

That surge topped out at just over 10,000 daily reported cases in mid-July, before dropping away to between 1000 and 2000 now.

"There's also uncertainty about how this will translate to health impacts and hospitalisations, because we do now have very levels of immunity."

Modellers estimate as much as two-thirds of the population now might have been exposed to the virus, giving them extra immunity on top of that conferred by the vaccine, against severe illness and death.

"But we can't say exactly how this might blunt the impacts of another wave."

Plank urged people to ensure they were up to date with their vaccinations and boosters.

"If you're eligible, it's definitely a good time to go out and get one, because you of course want to have that extra immunity before another wave really takes off."