Covid-19 Risk Assessment for England #202

Week Ending 17 November 2024

All available data suggests that Covid infection levels in England have fallen to the lowest level seen in the last 12 months. However, the risk of meeting an infected person in your everyday life has not gone away, and remains Moderately High. Covid infection levels in England have fallen to around 1 in every 254 people infected as of 17 November.

Risk Illustration

As a statistical example of the current risk of catching Covid, a typical busy supermarket will have 1 or 2 infected people breathing out virus for you to breathe in. A typical full single decker bus will have an infected person breathing out virus every 2 or 3 journeys. There will be an infected person beathing our virus in every two busy train carriages. If you work in a large, air-conditioned office or warehouse/factory without air purification, there will be around 2 infected people.

Caution! These estimates are based on a purely statistical analysis. The real risk is much less certain. Statistically, for example, every three full single decker buses will contain one infected person. However, you have no way of knowing whether the bus you are on is the infected bus or not. Also, Covid infections occur in clusters, often in family or friendship groups, so it could be that one bus has 4 infected people (and a very high level of virus in the air), while another 9 buses would have none.

The same principle applies to visiting cafes, restaurants, schools, or other public buildings – just because statistically there might not be an infected person there, there is no guarantee they won’t be. This is why we advise you to wear a respiratory filter mask in public places and on public transport. Cloth and surgical masks do not protect you.

Why Are Covid Levels Falling?

This is a hard question to answer with the available data, because the UK Government has stopped collecting and/or publishing most Covid data. However, it appears that we are seeing the end of a wave of infections driven by a particular Covid variant. This means that the majority of people now have a temporary acquired immunity to this variant, and cannot catch it again quickly. A replacement Covid variant is starting to spread to replace the current main variant, but has not yet spread enough to drive a new wave of infections.

It is possible that there is a degree of immunity to the replacement Covid variant from previous infections, and the Autumn vaccination campaign has probably helped reduce the number of cases as well. In the future, as always occurs, a new variant will find a competitive advantage over the others and become dominant, bringing a huge wave of new infections with it. This may happen over the next few weeks, helped by people mixing indoors over Christmas and New Year, or it may happen in early 2025.

It is vital to understand that the current lower levels of Covid infection does NOT mean that Covid has ‘gone away’. Levels are only lower at the moment because everyone caught Covid in the last few months. The lower levels of Covid are a sign of public health failure, not public health success.

Things To Remember

Covid is airborne: the virus spreads mainly through the air. An infected person in an unventilated place creates a large invisible cloud of virus which hangs in the air like smoke, ready for you to breathe in. BuDS strongly recommends that disabled and clinically vulnerable people avoid public transport and indoor spaces unless they are wearing a filter mask (FFP2/3) or respirator.

Because the NHS has not improved the ventilation in its buildings, hospitals and GP practices are extremely dangerous places to catch Covid. NHS staff are now required to work even if they have Covid and there are no Covid precautions in place at most NHS buildings. Do avoid hospitals and GP practices unless your visit is essential and wear a tight-fitted filter mask (FFP2 or FFP3) or respirator all the time if you have to go there.

Get Vaccinated

We urge everyone who is entitled to a free Covid vaccination to get it immediately – you will only be able to get an NHS dose for another few weeks. If you are not entitled to a free vaccination, please consider whether paying for the jab would be a good investment (if you can afford it, of course). Remember to wear a close-fitting respiratory mask (FFP2 or FFP3) when you have the jab – doctors’ surgeries and pharmacies are extremely high risk for catching Covid.

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