New Covid strain now in South West

Mutant variant of coronavirus spreading rapidly, with cases identified in all regions

ANEW variant of coronavirus sweeping London and the South East has spread to other parts of the UK, including the South West.

Dr Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England, said that, while many regions had cases of the new strain, these were in much smaller numbers than in London, Kent and parts of Essex. She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday: “It has been detected in many other parts of the country. Every region has cases but with very small numbers.”

Dr Hopkins also said that she hoped people who had crammed on to trains out of London after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Saturday that the capital was one of the areas going into the new Tier Four restrictions would reduce their contacts.

Scientists on the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) have concluded the new mutant strain identified by Public Health England laboratories is spreading more quickly.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that the new variant may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old one.

But Dr Hopkins said there was no evidence that the new variant of the virus was causing a disproportionate number of hospital admissions.

TOUGH new coronavirus controls will have to remain for “some time”, Matt Hancock warned yesterday as he admitted that a mutant new strain of the disease was “out of control”.

The Health Secretary said the country was facing an “enormous challenge” after scientists warned the new variant could be up to 70% more transmissible than the original virus. During a round of broadcast interviews, he said that everyone in the country needed to take “personal responsibility” for their actions to help curb the spread of the disease.

Millions of families had their Christmas plans plunged into disarray, after the Prime Minister announced on Saturday that London and much of the South East were to go into a new two-week lockdown in an attempt to get the disease back under control.

People across the rest of England were told that household mixing over the festive period would be restricted to Christmas Day only – a move quickly followed by the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.

Mr Hancock acknowledged that the speed of the changes had left people feeling “cross, frustrated and in many cases angry” but said ministers had had a “duty” to act when they were presented with the scientific evidence. He said he was “really worried” about the NHS, which is now treating almost as many hospital patients with the disease as it was at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April.

“The new variant is out of control and we need to bring it under control,” he told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show. “We don’t know how long these measures are going to be in place. It may be for some time until we can get the vaccine going.”

Mr Hancock said that more measures were needed to control the new variant than were required for the original virus. “We know, with this new variant, you can catch it more easily from a small amount of the virus being present,” he told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

“We know that because we know that in November in the areas where this new variant started, in Kent, the cases carried on rising, whereas in the rest of the country the November lockdown worked very effectively. It is an enormous challenge, until we can get the vaccine rolled out to protect people. This is what we face over the next couple of months.”

Meanwhile, several European Union nations have banned flights from the UK and others are considering similar action, in a quest to block the new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southern England from establishing a strong foothold elsewhere. The Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy have all announced restrictions on UK travel.