Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Indian variant may halt final unlocking
Monday’s reopening to go ahead but doubt thrown over June date:
BORIS Johnson has warned that the Indian coronavirus variant could “pose a serious disruption” to plans to ease restrictions and “could make it more difficult” to end them as hoped in June.
The Prime Minister told yesterday’s Downing Street press conference: “I do not believe that we need, on the present evidence, to delay our road map and we will proceed with our plan to move to step three in England from Monday.
“But I have to level with you that this new variant could pose a serious disruption to our progress and could make it more difficult to move to step four in June.”
He said that if the Indian variant proves to be “significantly more transmissible” than other strains “we’re likely to face some hard choices”.
The Prime Minister added: “I’m told that if it is only marginally more transmissible we can continue more or less as planned but if the variant is significantly more transmissible we’re likely to face some hard choices.”
But he said there is “no evidence to suggest that our vaccines will be less effective in protecting people against severe illness and hospitalisation”.
Cases of the Indian Covid variant have more than doubled in the past week, figures from Public Health England show.
Surge testing is already taking place in 15 areas across England, including Bolton, Blackburn, London, Sefton and Nottingham.
The Prime Minister announced new measures to try to tackle the new variant which has spread quickly particularly in the Bolton area in the northwest of England.
People over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will be offered their second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine eight weeks after the first in a bid to dampen any impact from the variant.
He said that second doses, which give people maximum protection against Covid-19, will be brought forward from the planned 12-week interval to eight weeks.
He said there was no evidence that a rise in cases of the Indian variant was translating into unmanageable pressures on the NHS in terms of hospital admissions.
As a result, he said he believed there was no need to delay the road map reopening set for Monday, which will see people able to socialise indoors.
The Prime Minister said that the UK’s surveillance data is now so advanced, that it would see well ahead of time if the NHS was likely to come under unsustainable pressure.
“That gives us the confidence to continue moving forwards for now,” he said.
Mr Johnson called on the people of Bolton and Blackburn to “play their part in stopping the spread of the new variant” and asked them to take the vaccine and the twice-weekly rapid tests.
“If you do test positive, you must selfisolate and we’ll provide financial support to those on low incomes to help them do so,” he said.
He added: “Our best chance of suppressing this variant is to clamp down on it, wherever it is and we’ll be throwing everything we can (at it).”
He urged people to “think twice” ahead of travelling to areas with higher incidences of the Indian variant and staying with family and friends within those areas.
“We want people in those areas to recognise that there is extra risk, an extra threat of disruption to progress caused by this new variant and just to exercise their discretion and judgment in a way I’m sure that they have been throughout this pandemic,” he said.
Chief medical officer (CMO) Professor Chris Whitty said the number who have died following a Covid test has been steadily decreasing with the most recent seven-day average standing at seven deaths a day.