A SAGE expert says the UK will have to learn to live with a 'substantial' number of Covid deaths each year.
Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said society will have to live with a degree of mortality that will be “substantial”, but added that we will “get back to normal”.
He told Times Radio: “I think, you know, given the societal trade-offs, we are going to have to live with a degree of mortality that will be substantial.
“I think it will get less over time as more people get vaccinated, and as more people get immune, and I do believe that we’ve been through the worst of this.”
Prof Hayward said he does not think new variants of Covid-19 will completely evade vaccine-related immunity.
“The vaccines will still take the sting out of it, if you like, and reduce the case fatality rates,” he said.
“Of course, we have the technology to update the vaccines and I think that’s where we’re going really, a situation that will be much more like flu, the numbers of deaths will be much more like flu, the approach to surveillance of new strains and development of new vaccines and regular annual vaccinations will be like that.
“And we will get back to normal.”
