New strain ‘has spread around UK’
GENOMIC researchers have found the new and more infectious variant of Covid-19 has already spread around the UK, with cases identified in Wales and Scotland.
The Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium sampled cases around the UK and found the variant is also in the South West, Midlands and North of England, areas under Tier 2 and 3 restrictions.
Jeffrey Barrett, lead Covid-19 statistical geneticist at COG-UK, warned there was a lag in the sequence data being sampled, so the most recent data was from the first week of December when England came out of the second national lockdown.
He said: “They’re relatively small numbers but I think it is important to be aware that it is certainly not the case that this is just completely geographically constrained to what is the current Tier 4 area.”
The new variant led to London and parts of southern and eastern England being rushed into the new Tier 4 regime at the weekend, effectively cancelling Christmas plans and imposing measures similar to previous national lockdowns.
Meanwhile, Brussels said travel from the UK to the European Union should be “dis
couraged” due to fears about the mutant variant of coronavirus but bans on movement should be lifted.
The European Commission recommended a joint approach from EU members after individual countries imposed emergency restrictions.
The most dramatic action came from France, which closed its border to lorries crossing the Channel, leading to more than 1,500 HGVs being trapped in Kent.
The EU-wide approach recommended by the commission would allow essential travel, and transit of passengers should be facilitated. Flight and train bans “should be discontinued given the need to ensure essential travel and avoid supply chain disruptions”, the commission said. UK ministers have insisted that supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is manufactured in Belgium, have not been affected by the disruption.
Yesterday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said 650 lorries were queued on the M20 with 873 at a former airfield site in Manston, Kent, as they were blocked from using ferry routes to Dover and the Channel Tunnel. Ms Patel said the Government is “speaking constantly” with France to achieve a resolution “in both our interests” to get freight moving again.
More than 40 countries around the world have banned flights from the UK due to the mutant variant of coronavirus, which spreads more readily than previous strains.
Meanwhile, scientific advisers continued to press the case for tougher restrictions in response to the VUI 202012/1 variant.
Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage scientific advisory panel, told the Today programme: “Unfortunately, it does look like the virus is probably across the country already and so I do think that we might, unfortunately, have to impose tougher restrictions across the country.”