Sir John Bell had some cheering science stuff to say on World at One dubbers

Posted at 13:59

Self-isolation laws probably no longer necessary - leading scientist

Now is "not a bad time" to start stepping back restrictions because vaccines have been "hugely effective" at reducing severe disease from Covid, a leading scientist says.

Sir John Bell, a professor of medicine at Oxford University who was involved in developing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, says we are now in a position where legally enforced self-isolation is "probably not necessary".

"I think we can rely pretty effectively on good behaviour from the population to avoid spread of the disease," he tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, adding that only the unvaccinated are now "really suffering badly" from Covid.

In response to reports free testing will be scaled back, Prof Bell says moving to a "purely commercial model" of testing would be "problematic" because of the "excruciating prices" some private companies are charging for relatively cheap tests.

He adds that while testing should still be offered in hospitals, care homes and for the immunosuppressed, as well as for some national surveillance of the virus, "we are doing a lot more testing than we need to be".

Posted at 14:1514:15
We don't really need compulsory face masks, says expert

While many people will choose to continue wearing face masks, Prof Bell says he doesn't think wearing them "indefinitely is really going to help".

The professor of medicine at Oxford University says masks "didn't really help" with the more transmissible Omicron variant and while they probably reduced transmission, they could not prevent it.

“I don’t think mandating mask-wearing is necessarily a sensible thing," he tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

On the possibility of more dangerous variants emerging, Prof Bell says he is "pretty confident" new variants will emerge, which could be more serious than Omicron, but that the immunity from vaccines will probably continue to be effective against severe disease.

He says we shouldn't stop thinking about how to prepare for future pandemics, which he describes as "inevitable" and more likely to happen in the next 10 years than the next 100 years.

Posted By: Old Git, Feb 21, 18:07:59