Large numbers of Covid cases could increase the risk of the virus mutating, an expert has said.
Appearing on LBC, Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) Government advisory panel, was asked, in relation to lockdown, if Covid cases mattered if hospital admissions were not increasing.
Dr Tildesley said they mattered “significantly less”, but “it’s not like they don’t matter at all”.
He added: “The problem is, if you have huge numbers of cases, then that increases the risk of the virus mutating, and it may be that you might get a variant emerging that all of a sudden evades the vaccines completely.”
Asked what he meant by huge numbers, he replied: “A big wave of infections that starts to get to the sorts of levels we saw back in March or in January.
“If we have a small rise where maybe we’re doubling the daily number of cases we’re seeing now, maybe we’re less worried about that.
“But if we get a big wave of cases, then this idea of having new variants emerging that are more dangerous, does increase in risk.
“So it’s not like they don’t matter at all. But of course, if we are seeing that hospital admissions are not rising, or maybe only rising slightly, then we will be significantly less worried about that than we were back in January.”
