Too early to ease lockdown?

The COVID Diaries – 62 29th May

John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a government adviser who attends meetings of Sage, the scientific advisory group on emergencies, has voiced unease over the decision to ease England’s lockdown while thousands of people a day are still becoming infected.

World Health Organisation statistics suggest our infection rate is the fifth highest in the world. “We cannot relax our guard by very much at all,” said John Edmunds. There are still 8,000 new infections every day in England without counting those in hospitals and care homes, Edmunds said. “If you look at it internationally, it’s a very high level of incidence.”