Third wave threat to holidays abroad
BRITONS’ hopes for a summer holiday abroad have been thrown into doubt over concerns of a third Covid-19 wave caused by the South African variant.
Professor Neil Ferguson, a senior scientific adviser to the Government, said a small but growing number of cases in some European countries were of the more transmissible variant.
He said the increasing cases were mainly being driven by the variant first identified in Kent, but added: “Perhaps more concern for the UK though is that some countries are notably seeing a significant fraction, 5-10 per cent of cases, of the South African variant.
“That is the variant we really do want to keep out of the UK.”
Britain will not be able to keep the variant at bay forever, he warned. However, he added that by keeping it at low levels, it “will give us more time” to vaccinate the whole adult population.
He believes there are “important decisions coming up” in the UK regarding travel rules ahead of summer.
He told BBC Radio 4: “It’s always a balancing act. How much we relax the current ban on international travel except for essential services.”
Travel from European countries accounted for 86 per cent of imported cases to the UK, between May and September, according to a Public Health England study.
Meanwhile, millions scrambled to leave Paris yesterday before the French capital entered a month-long lockdown following fears of a third Covid-19 wave.