- The Covid variant first detected in India is set to be the dominant strain in the UK within days.
- The government and health teams struggling to contain cases, which have risen by more than 75% since Thursday.
- With the rapid spread of the more transmissible B.1.617.2 variant threatening to reverse moves to ease lockdown.
- The government faced intense pressure to more fully explain the delay in adding India to the so-called red list of countries.
A recent news article published in The Guardian reveals that India variant will be dominant UK Covid strain ‘in next few days’.
Doubts over plans to relax lockdown rules
Johnson is now set to delay plans to announce an end to social-distancing rules, postponing the conclusion of a review expected by the end of the month, casting significant doubt over the wider plan to relax most lockdown rules on 21 June.
Speaking on the day indoor hospitality and other venues were allowed to reopen, Matt Hancock told MPs that 2,323 cases of the variant known as B.1.617.2 had been confirmed, up from 1,313 on Thursday, with 483 of those in the outbreaks in Bolton and Blackburn. There are now 86 local authorities with five or more confirmed cases, he said.
A race between the virus and the vaccine
Describing a “race between the virus and the vaccine”, the health secretary rejected calls from Labour to consider a push to vaccinate all adults in the most affected areas, saying that surge testing was the best remedy.
Hancock said 35,000 more tests had been distributed or collected in Bolton and Blackburn, along with a push to target those eligible for vaccinations, with 6,200 jabs carried out in Bolton alone over the weekend.
No evidence on rapid rise in cases
“There is no evidence that the recent rapid rise in cases of the B.1.617.2 variant shows any signs in slowing,” he said. “This variant will overtake [the Kent variant] and become the dominant variant in the UK in the next few days, if it hasn’t already done so.”
This has prompted renewed questions about why India was not added sooner to the red list of countries, where all arrivals apart from UK nationals are banned, and those who do come must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
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Source: The Guardian
