Quarantine should be imposed until at least a month after we have all been vaccinated
THE arrival of the P1 Brazilian variant shows the UK Government’s country list quarantine has failed in exactly the ways it was warned it would. People who have been in red list countries continue to enter the UK via third countries, including via Ireland into Scotland, using the Common Travel Area loophole the UK Government, which has reserved power over air transport, left in guidelines.
The P1 variant has been found in at least 15 countries that aren’t on the red list, so more can arrive from them. Even the half-useless quarantine list system was brought in too late to stop some of the known cases arriving.
Claiming there are only a few cases is fantasy. Under a dozen tested positive so far. There’ll be many more who won’t get tested – and they haven’t even found one of those they do know of.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock talk as if we can afford to proceed with lifting Covid restrictions before the majority of the population has been vaccinated once, let alone twice, while partially vaccine-resistant variants are allowed to spread into and out of the UK by air. That’s living in la la land.
There should be mandatory hotel quarantine for all passengers entering the UK (still allowing cargo flights) and all restrictions maintained until a month after everyone has been vaccinated. First doses have been found to boost the immune system against the virus between 12 and 28 days after vaccination.
Even after domestic restrictions are eased, flight bans and/or mandatory hotel quarantine should be
maintained as many other countries’ populations have not been vaccinated, and we can’t predict when or where new outbreaks will begin.
Vaccines have been found to reduce asymptomatic transmission in NHS staff and trial volunteers by 75 per cent for Pfizer, 67% for Astrazeneca and 60% for Moderna. This will hopefully reduce transmission of the virus significantly once everyone has been vaccinated.
If we ease restrictions too soon we risk being overwhelmed again by new variants.
Producing vaccines modified for new variants can take from six weeks to six months.
Duncan Mcfarlane, Carluke.