Deep within the UK’s shocking Covid data, there may be reasons for optimism

John Edmunds, a member of Sage and professor in the faculty of epidemiology and population health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said while the epidemic has looked relatively stable over the past few months, “this has masked large changes under the surface, with rises and falls in levels of immunity in different age groups being generated by different processes – levels of immunity are rapidly increasing in children due to sky-high infection rates, whereas immunity is falling in older age groups who were vaccinated earlier in the year”.He added: “How these dynamics play out is very difficult to predict right now, but it is clear that speeding up the vaccine rollout in children and boosters in adults will help both in the short and longer term.”