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‘Global Covid elimination is the only way forward’ — UK epidemiologist

July 18, 2021

UK epidemiologist Dr Deepti Gurdasani says Britain is already facing a Covid crisis as the government prepares to lift its last virus restrictions.

An epidemiologist who has researched long Covid is calling for a globally coordinated elimination response to the virus.

Dr Deepti Gurdasani, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, told Q+A that an elimination strategy “is the only way forward”.

“I think the best strategy here is a globally coordinated response [of] elimination so that we can build green corridors with countries that have also eliminated the virus,” she said.

“I don’t honestly see how we can live with this virus and stay ahead of virus adaptation if many countries continue this rhetoric of living with the virus and allowing high levels of transmission. It’s simply not possible.

“Everyone has to at this point in time admit that elimination is the only way forward and we need to coordinate on this globally, which means sharing resources including vaccines with countries that don’t have them and supporting them with elimination in whatever way possible.”

The UK Government is aiming to lift public health restrictions in England by July 19.

Gurdasani said even if countries managed to vaccinate 100 per cent of their population, it’s unlikely herd immunity would be reached.

“It’s very easy for a new variant to evolve. It’s possible even in the UK where high transmission is continuing alongside a partially-vaccinated population, which actually provides the most fertile conditions for a virus adaptation to escape, and were a variant to evolve that’s able to escape vaccines even more, it would have huge impacts not just for the UK strategy, but globally.”

The epidemiologist is critical of the UK Government’s decision to relax all remaining Covid-19 restrictions on July 19, saying she is “extremely concerned”, especially for young people who are susceptible to long Covid.

“Long Covid is something that has been completely dismissed I think from our policy and not considered at all, which is very worrying,” she said.

“We know that about 10 per cent of even young people go on to develop symptoms for 12 weeks or more and we know that a significant number of these will have symptoms for six months or one year or longer.

The UK currently has about 33,000 children living with long Covid, and of those, 9000 have had symptoms for more them a year.

“So for them, this is not the flu, this is a disease that is debilitating.”

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