Ministers are being urged to reassure vulnerable members of the public as Covid cases surge ahead of the 19 July reopening, with MPs and campaigners warning they are being “deluged” with emails from anxious members of the public.
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has acknowledged that new cases of Covid could rise to as high as 100,000 a day in the coming weeks as almost all restrictions are lifted, including mandatory mask-wearing.
A department of health spokesperson said the clinically vulnerable – those with underlying health conditions that make them susceptible to the virus, or whose immune systems are ineffective – “will want to take extra precautions”. But no advice has yet been published about how they should do so.
Jenny Harries, the former deputy chief medical officer, led the government’s work on the clinically vulnerable, but has since moved on to head the new health security agency. Her successor, Thom Waite, has not yet started in the post – though the spokesperson said the work was continuing.
In the meantime, they said, worried patients should take up the offer of the vaccine – and “speak to their GP for advice on how to manage the risks of Covid-19 according to their personal situation”.
“The standard guidance for clinically extremely vulnerable people will be updated before step 4 to reflect the lifting of restrictions on 19 July, if the decision is taken to move to the next step of the roadmap,” the spokesperson added. A final decision will be taken by ministers in the coming days about whether to press ahead with the 19 July date.
The shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, who is immuno-compromised herself, said the government had not yet published the results of clinical research into whether the vaccine was effective for people in her situation. “I’ve been asking about it every week. I’m like a broken record,” she said. “We don’t know if it’s 10% effective, we don’t know if it’s 50% effective”.
She said many members of the public had already contacted her to express concern in recent weeks, as cases surged because of the spread of the Delta variant. But the decision to scrap almost all restrictions on 19 July had sown widespread alarm, she said. “They’re just opening everything up. Why could they not keep mask-wearing going for a bit more?”
Whitehall sources suggested that the government hopes to publish data Foxcroft has been pressing for before the 19 July reopening, which is less than a fortnight away.
Another campaigner said they had been “deluged” with messages from people fretful about being exposed to the virus, and that some were cancelling holidays or telling their bosses they could no longer physically go into work.
Several other MPs also told the Guardian that worried constituents were raising concerns with them about the high level of cases the government is anticipating, and the impact of mask-wearing no longer being mandatory.
Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, said many clinically vulnerable people were “deeply worried about the government’s cavalier approach to easing all restrictions in one go”. She said: “It is shameful that even though we are just over a week away from removing all restrictions, no guidance for vulnerable people has been published despite the government admitting Covid cases will rise considerably.
The Guardian understands that even some government medical advisers say they have been contacted by people worried about how they should behave in the weeks ahead.
Boris Johnson has laid heavy stress on the importance of replacing what he has called government “diktat” with an approach that relies on individual responsibility.
Challenged by Keir Starmer on Wednesday about the prospects of a “summer of chaos” as cases soar and potentially millions of people are forced to self-isolate, the prime minister insisted that his government was taking a “balanced and reasonable approach”.
He said the shift away from using the law to enforce measures such as mask-wearing towards personal responsibility was justified, because the vaccine programme had “severed the link between infection and serious disease and deaths”.
The government has also delayed its plan to allow double-jabbed people to escape quarantine, which ministers had hoped to introduce on 19 July but have now pushed back until 16 August.
More than 2m patients deemed clinically extremely vulnerable spent five months last “shielding” – shutting themselves away at home – on official advice. Many relied on the kindness of neighbours and family members to help with food shopping and other essentials as they remained indoors.