Ministers did not suppress the virus, and now a new variant is surging in the south-east of England
@globalhlthtwitTue 22 December 2020
During the first wave of Covid-19 in Britain, many scientists – myself included – said the government should be pursuing a “maximum suppression” or “zero Covid” strategy. One of the many reasons for this was to stop natural selection doing its work. When a virus is allowed to spread, spending time in different hosts, it evolves and mutates. Scientists have now found a “mutant” variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, which has 17 alterations to its genetic sequences, including changes in the spike protein that enables the virus to enter our cells.https://cfa6d3a5a0f3f6a5f99512f64fc25c2f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html?n=0
Despite the warnings, the government’s strategy throughout the pandemic has been to slow the spread of the virus and reduce pressure on the NHS, rather than eliminating Covid altogether. As late as 13 March, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) minutes recorded that “measures seeking to completely suppress [the] spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak”. Advisers warned that countries such as China, where heavy suppression was already under way “will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed”. Instead of eliminating coronavirus, the logic seemed to be, Britain would learn to live with it.
Nine months later, China and South Korea have recorded three and 12 deaths per million people respectively. By contrast, based on the government data for deaths occurring within 28 days of a positive Covid test, the UK has recorded 970 deaths from Covid per million people.
Scientists only expected the virus that causes Covid-19 to undergo one to two mutations each month – but with an estimated 2 million people now infected with Covid in the UK, there are many more opportunities for the virus to mutate. The new variant seems to be accelerating transmission. Many have asked whether this will affect the efficacy of a vaccination programme – but this is something scientists could likely fix reasonably quickly by adjusting the RNA coding of the new vaccines. It’s not possible to tell yet whether the new variant of the virus will change the severity of Covid-19 in those who catch it.
France to reopen border with United Kingdom
UK and France reach agreement to allow French and other EU residents to travel if they have a negative COVID-19 test.
France will reopen its borders to passengers from the United Kingdom on Wednesday, ending a blockade intended to stop the spread of a new coronavirus variant, but which has held up thousands of lorries before Christmas.
Much of the world shut its borders to Britain after a significantly more transmissible mutated coronavirus variant was discovered spreading swiftly across southern England.
With queues of trucks snaking to the horizon in England and some supermarket shelves stripped just days before Christmas, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrambled to get French President Emmanuel Macron to lift a ban on freight from Britain.
Late on Tuesday, a deal was reached with Paris to allow French and other EU residents to return home, providing they have a negative COVID-19 test that is less than 72 hours old.
French Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari confirmed that air travel, boats and Eurostar trains would “resume service as of tomorrow morning”.
“French nationals, people living in France and those with a legitimate reason will have to be carrying a negative test,” he said.
Later on Tuesday the UK announced it had reached an agreement with France to allow lorry drivers stranded in the UK to leave, providing they take a rapid virus test.
“All lorry drivers, irrespective of nationality, will require a lateral flow test. This can detect the new strain of Covid-19 and provide results in around 30 minutes, rather than the 24 hours required after a PCR test,” said the transport ministry, adding the deal would be reviewed on 31 December.
Britain said it would begin handing out tests at multiple locations on Wednesday but cautioned that the process would take time.
“We’ll be making sure that tomorrow we’re out there providing tests,” UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said. “This will take two or three days for things to be cleared.”
Earlier the European Commission advised that non-essential travel to and from Britain should be discouraged but said that people heading home should be allowed to do so, provided they undergo a COVID-19 test or quarantine for 10 days.
The border closures were causing headaches across Europe, especially for those trying to transport perishable food. Milk suppliers were already trying to boost milk stocks in Britain ahead of Brexit.
“The plan was to stock up in the next 10 days so if there is a Brexit problem there are stocks for January,” said Alexander Anton, the secretary general of the European Dairy Association. “Now you can’t find a transport company to send a driver to the UK.”
The United Kingdom’s effective COVID-19 quarantine came just nine days before it is due to part ways with the EU after a transition period – considered to be one of the biggest changes in post-World War Two British history.
Countries across Europe and beyond have suspended travel from Britain since the weekend. Germany imposed a ban on UK travellers from Tuesday that could remain in place until January 6.
What’s certain is that the greater the number of people who are infected, the more chance a virus has to evolve. The government rightly fears that a surge in cases in southern England, where transmission is worryingly high, will spread across the country, and EU member states have banned travel and limited freight from the UK in an attempt to stop the variant spreading. Measures to prevent the spread of Covid are much the same as before – restricting household mixing, social distancing, travel bans, rapid testing, contact tracing and isolation, face masks, hand hygiene and working from home. Workplaces and schools will remain shut over Christmas, and the tier 4 lockdown in London and the south-east should dampen the opportunities for infections. For now, the government’s priority should be scaling up vaccinations as quickly as possible, and offering proper support to those affected by lockdown and self-isolation measures.
One exception was the United States, which does not intend to impose COVID-19 screenings for passengers from Britain.
Cases of the new strain have also been detected in some other countries, including Denmark and Italy. Experts said the prevalence in Britain might be down to better detection.
Britain’s border crisis led to some panic-buying: shoppers stripped shelves in some supermarkets of turkey, toilet rolls, bread and vegetables.
While the government said there was enough food for Christmas, Tesco and Sainsbury’s both said food supplies would be affected if the disruption continued. Tesco said it had imposed temporary buying limits on some essential products.
But none of this was inevitable. The recent surge cannot be blamed on a mutant virus alone; in fact, government mismanagement of the pandemic meant that many more people became infected, creating the conditions for mutations to occur.What do we know about the fast-spreading Covid variant in UK?
The failures of the government’s pandemic response are legion. An earlier lockdown by just one week in the spring could have halved the death rate, according to Nick Davies, a Sage adviser. Ministers wasted billions on outsourcing an allegedly “world-beating” test-and-trace system to private companies. It has failed to monitor rates of self-isolation and provided scant financial support to those asked to quarantine at home, relying on workers who don’t get sick pay, such as those in the gig economy, to isolate while losing wages. After Britain’s spring lockdown, infection rates fell, but the government again failed to do what was needed in time to suppress the virus.https://cfa6d3a5a0f3f6a5f99512f64fc25c2f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html?n=0
The government’s poor control of Covid-19 has increased the force of the infection and allowed more mutations to happen. On top of the economic costs of lockdown measures, the UK has now been effectively placed in quarantine by the international community. The prime minister’s repeated dithering, delays and seeming inability to make unpopular decisions have led Britain to have one of the worst death rates in the world. We have now cancelled Christmas and triggered international alarm. We can only hope that we’re not still in this position by Easter.
- Anthony Costello is professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London and a former director of maternal and child health at the WHO
