September will be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 data with the return of schools and end of the summer holidays, an expert has said.
Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) which advises the Government, told Times Radio that it “remains to be seen” how things might change when people start to mix more.
Speaking in a personal capacity, he said: “I think the key thing for me actually is what’s going to happen next month.
“Children are going back to school, people are coming back off their summer vacations and I think monitoring what that does to the data – and not just cases but monitoring very carefully hospital admissions and deaths – will really dictate I think what’s going to happen in the autumn.
“We’re in quite a different place from where we were 12 months ago.
"Obviously, we have the Delta variant which is more transmissible, we have quite high prevalence, a lot of cases, but of course on the other side, we have a very good and effective vaccination campaign.
“So I think it remains to be seen how they will trade off against each other and what that will do when September comes and people start to mix a little bit more.”
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