UK News Normal increase in coughs and colds 'causing utter chaos' in Britain

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September's normal increase in coughs and colds caused by schools going back is causing 'utter chaos' in the UK because people are terrified of Covid-19, according to a top scientist.

Professor Carl Heneghan, a former doctor and now medicine expert at the University of Oxford, today vented his frustration about the 'panic' being stirred up over the coronavirus crisis.

Meeting with MPs on Parliament's Science and Technology Committee, he insisted coughs and colds spike every September when children head back to class, and become even more common during the winter.

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Public Health England's weekly coronavirus surveillance report revealed that the rate of infection for people in their 20s fell for the first time in 10 weeks from 56 per 100,000 to 52.Those in the 20-29 age group still have the highest infection rate of anyone in the country but the number of cases per 100,000 people dropped in the second week of September.

But Government messaging about the deadly consequences of Covid-19 and forcing entire towns and regions into lockdown – rules that now cover 9.2million people – have left members of the public 'fearful' and 'terrorised'.

He said there has been a 50 per cent increase in reports from family doctors seeing patients with chest infections that have the same symptoms as the coronavirus.

Professor Heneghan's comments come as the Government is complaining of skyrocketing demand for coronavirus tests from people who are worried they have it.

National test-processing laboratories are crumbling under the pressure of the more than 200,000 swabs per day they are being inundated with and people are even turning up at A&E departments or queuing outside test centres desperate to be seen.

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The Oxford scientist said coughs will continue to surge into the winter months and there will also be a spike in deaths and people in hospitals – some will be caused by coronavirus, he said, but most won't.

He argued the virus is not circulating at epidemic levels and, if it were cold or flu cases, current levels would not be out of the ordinary.

In his meeting with MPs today, Professor Heneghan said:

© Provided by Daily Mail Professor Carl Heneghan today appeared in front of MPs on the Science and Technology Committee and said the Government's approach to tackling coronavirus and its messaging about the virus has left people 'terrified'

'Keeping our children in school is important but at the moment it is utter chaos because of the 50 per cent increase in other respiratory pathogens that mimic Covid in children,' Professor Heneghan said.

He refers to illnesses that produce similar symptoms to Covid-19, which are usually viral infections referred to as respiratory tract infections, or chest infections.

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Cases of these spike every winter because people spend more time indoors close together, and coughs and sneezes spread them easily.

And they are rising now, Professor Heneghan pointed out, because children are returning to school and mixing more with others every day. This would happen regardless of the Covid-19 outbreak.

But because the symptoms are so similar – coughs, breathing difficulties, feeling wheezy, or fever – people think they or their children might have Covid-19.

As a result, demand for tests is going up. As more people get tested in an area, more cases get discovered that otherwise might not have, making infections look higher.

For example, parents have reportedly taken coronavirus tests because their children are sick, or because their classmates have had Covid scares.

Professor Heneghan argues that increased testing is leading to more cases, which is stoking fears that a deadly resurgence of coronavirus is coming, akin to the one that sent the country into lockdown.

'I want to explain what happens in September,' he said. 'We've seen in the RCGP [Royal College of General Practitioners] surveillance data, a 50 per cent increase in consultations for acute respiratory infections.

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'When you go back to school, when you open up business and when we come back off our holiday, there is a highly predictable increase in acute respiratory pathogens.

'That leads to a near three-fold increase in [emergency] admissions for children in September alone, so it's important to say you're acting against the backdrop of what happens in September for all acute respiratory pathogens.

'Out of the 200,0000 people who are coming forward [for Covid-19 tests] it looks like about 25 are asymptomatic when they come forward, and about 150,000 have some discernible symptoms.

'Of them, 97 per cent have some other acute respiratory pathogen on board and about three to four thousand have Covid, so let's get the context in place.'

Professor Heneghan argued that Covid-19 is not actually circulating at levels that would be considered an epidemic.

Although Government and council officials have been racked with fear about infection rates rising to 70 or 100 or even 200 cases per 100,000, Professor Heneghan played down the numbers.

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He said: 'When you talk about infections and epidemic in terms of general practice – and this is a long-established number – we talk about 400 per 100,000 consulting constitutes an epidemic. And that's symptomatic people.

'So when you talk about 200, 250, you're still in the same ballpark of a seasonal pathogen.

'The question is within that 200 or 250 is how many of them are symptomatic versus asymptomatic. The other question is what impact is it having?

'For instance I looked at Bolton NHS Trust and saw that there were two patients with Covid in hospital there right now. So I think that's where you start to provide context as opposed to just throwing the number.

'And I think we do need to have now more data that allows people to put the information in context as opposed to just seeing a number, think it's rising and then panic.'

The panic being stirred up by regularly-referenced infection rates was a sticking point for Professor Heneghan, who has repeatedly come out against strict lockdown measures.

He has argued that a second wave will not arrive like the first one, and that people must be allowed to get on with life as normal as much as possible, while efforts are made to protect vulnerable people such as the elderly.

Taking aim at the Government's attitude to the virus, he said people had been left too scared of the virus to get back to normal, particularly in schools.

He referenced a case where a Year 13 student was thought to have Covid-19 and their entire year group went into isolation before they had even been tested.

'We've got restriction measures coming in now because nobody has a strategy,' he said, adding: 'What's happening at the moment is the language and the rhetoric is making people so fearful, and terrorised that they're going beyond the guidance because they're so fearful of what's coming next.

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'So there needs to be a dialling back of the rhetoric, there needs to be a thoughtful discussion now about what exactly is the Government's strategy, because I don't understand it right now.'

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