Arthritis drugs offer some light in the darkest moment of the pandemic

It has been a long, dark, cold week back from the so-called break over Christmas that was regularly interrupted by Covid rule changes and Brexit. The latest coronavirus press conference offered a lot of information that wasn’t particularly cheery either. Asked about people protesting outside hospitals to call the pandemic a hoax, Boris Johnson told them to “grow up”. More helpfully, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens in response laid out the facts: there has been an increase of 10,000 hospitalised coronavirus patients since Christmas Day, and every single day in London 800 new patients with Covid are admitted – the equivalent of St Thomas’ hospital. If you know anyone downplaying the severity of the crisis, show them these videos by a data journalist from the FT.

The latest daily death toll was 1,162, the highest since April, and it is expected to increase. It had been suggested that a second or third wave may not be worse than the first because the NHS would be better prepared with knowledge of how to treat Covid patients. Although the experience helps, it hasn’t prevented a worse resurgence of the virus – but there has been encouraging developments on this front. Two arthritis drugs have been found to cut the risk of death in Covid patients by 24% and can reduce time in intensive care by ten days. Johnson promised that they would be available through the NHS immediately, and updated guidance will be issued to NHS hospitals today.

The government has already committed to giving a first dose to all those in the top four priority groups by mid-February. The Prime Minister has now set new targets of vaccinating hundreds of thousands a day by next Friday, plus setting up 223 hospital sites, over 1,000 GP-led sites and seven mass vaccination centres. (While elsewhere they have rolled out vaccines quickly via centres, we were told yesterday that the geography of this country means a mixture of different routes is best.) Johnson also committed to reaching all elderly care home residents by the end of the month.

The number of Covid patients is still increasing rapidly, which shows the government absolutely should have locked down sooner to stop this from happening, and the Christmas bubble plan was a bad idea with fatal consequences. Ministers, particularly Rishi Sunak, also need to take measures prioritising public health over ideology, as outlined here by Richard Burgon. But I wish the government every success in meeting its vaccine ambitions.