Coronavirus UK: Boris Johnson admits he is ‘anxious’ about Indian variant
Boris admits he is ‘anxious’ about Indian variant and is ‘ruling nothing out’ to tackle its spread amid fears England’s June 21 ‘freedom’ day could be delayed – as MPs and families in mutant variant hotspots slam No10 for not banning travel quickly enough
- Prime Minister claimed that England’s lockdown-easing plans still on track but hinted at local restrictions
- SAGE is meeting today to decide whether to keep curbs for longer to contain spread of the Indian variant
- Cross-party MPs and families living in hotspots blamed ministers for taking weeks to put India on red list
Boris Johnson today admitted he was ‘anxious’ about the Indian variant spreading rapidly in the UK and warned the Government would ‘rule nothing out’ in its effort to contain it.
The Prime Minister claimed England’s lockdown-easing plans on Monday and June 21 were still on track — despite cases of the B.1.617.2 strain tripling nationally in a week.
But during a visit to a primary school in County Durham today, Mr Johnson said: ‘It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it. There are a range of things we could do, we want to make sure we grip it.
‘We want to make sure we take all the prudential, cautious steps now that we could take, so there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do. There is a range of things we could do, we are ruling nothing out.’
The PM added: ‘At the moment, I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we will be able to go ahead on Monday and indeed on June 21, everywhere.’
But he hinted door-to-door testing could be rolled out in dozens of areas where the mutant strain is known to be spreading, warning ‘there may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get’.
No10’s top scientists on the SAGE advisory panel today convened an emergency meeting to decide whether any restrictions will need to remain in place for longer to contain the spread of B.1.617.2.
Studies suggest the variant — first detected in Britain in February — may be 60 per cent more transmissible than the highly infectious Kent version (B.1.1.7) that triggered the UK’s raging second wave. Experts have no reason to believe it evades vaccines and reports from India suggest it still protects against severe illness.
Despite the huge success of Britain’s vaccination drive, which No10 has hailed as being the country’s way out of the pandemic, a third of adults have still yet to be inoculated — meaning millions could still be struck down if the variant is allowed to spread. Jabs were prioritised for older adults who are most at risky of dying but they are not perfect and some immunised Brits will still get severely ill.
It came as a cross-party group of MPs and families living in hotspots currently grappling the new variant slammed No10 for taking too long to ban travel from India.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus said a ‘failure to act swiftly enough’ had propelled the spread of the highly-infectious strain, which they warned could undo the success of the jab rollout and winter lockdown.
Ministers only added India to the ‘red list’ in late April, despite the country suffering a devastating second wave and UK officials knowing about the B.1.617.2 variant for weeks. The delay saw thousands of travellers from the coronavirus-stricken nation flood into the UK.
A Bolton woman whose family originate from India told MailOnline the Government was ‘to blame’ for an outbreak of the strain in the Greater Manchester town and rapidly rising case numbers nationally. Rukhsana Shaikh, 49, said she personally knows of dozens of fellow Bolton residents who arrived back in the town from India just days before travel was restricted.
The Indian variant is already dominant in Bolton and Blackburn, where cases have doubled in the last seven days, and its prevalence has tripled nationally in a week.
Boris Johnson (visiting a primary school in County Durham today) admitted he was ‘anxious’ about the Indian variant spreading rapidly in the UK and warned the Government would ‘rule nothing out’ in its effort to contain it
An emergency meeting will be held by experts at the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies committee today after it was found that India’s Covid variant is now dominant in five local authorities in England. There are mounting concerns that it is more infectious than the currently dominant Kent strain
How Bolton’s rising infection rate has been triggered by the Indian variant: Public Health England data shows the strain is making up almost 70 per cent of new cases in the Greater Manchester town after its prevalence doubled a month
Public Health England has divided the Indian variant into three sub-types. Type 1 and Type 3 both have a mutation called E484Q but Type 2 is missing this, despite still clearly being a descendant of the original Indian strain. Type 1 and 3 have a slightly different set of mutations. The graphic shows all the different variants that have been spotted in Britain
Data show that seven out of England’s 10 Covid hotspots (inset) are in the North of England with three in the Midlands (Erewash, Bedford and North Lincolnshire), while the places where positive tests are rising fastest are scattered across the country
People line up outside a mobile vaccination centre in Bolton, where coronavirus cases have almost doubled in a week
Rukhsana Shaikh, 49, whose family originate from India revealed that her father died from Covid last year. She said: ‘I’m worried sick about this news of the Indian variant being in Bolton’
Studies suggest the variant — first detected in Britain in February — may be 60 per cent more transmissible than the highly infectious Kent version (B.1.1.7) that triggered the UK’s raging second wave.
But experts have no reason to believe it evades vaccines and reports from India suggest it still protects against severe illness.
SAGE will analyse the latest evidence on the Indian B.1.617.2 variant from the UK and around the world during its meeting today. One expert on the panel told The i newspaper that a delay to the June 21 unlocking ‘is possible’.
Foreign Office minister James Cleverly claimed officials were waiting on the assessments of No10’s top scientific advisers before deciding if longer restrictions are needed.
Environment Secretary George Eustice yesterday refused to rule out local lockdowns from next month when the national restrictions are expected to end.
Testing figures show the new variant is behind half of all Covid infections in Bedford, South Northamptonshire and Sefton in Merseyside. Cases are also increasing in London.
And Public Health England is expected to announce today that domestic cases of the Indian variant have more than tripled in a week, with the figure expected to be in the region of 1,700.
Ms Shaikh told MailOnline the blame for the outbreak of the variant lay firmly at the feet of ministers.
‘Bolton has a very large community of people with Indian origins like me. And they were frequently travelling back and forth to the country right up until the moment India was placed on the red list,’ she added.
‘The UK Government should have got its act together and if you ask me, they’re to blame for the Indian variant being in this country. The coronavirus situation in India started getting bad in March but there were people from Bolton who were still travelling there.
‘They were coming back after about two or three weeks, returning to work and their kids went back to school. Look at the situation now in India and it’s madness that our Government didn’t’ stop people from travelling there much earlier.’
While only pockets of the country are being impacted at present, scientists have warned against tiered localised lockdowns and said the variant should be viewed as a national problem.
Professor James Naismith, a biologist at Oxford University, claimed the strain will eventually ‘get everywhere’ as the Kent variant did when it emerged in the South East last autumn. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘I think we should view it as a country-wide problem. It will get everywhere.
‘We keep learning this lesson, but we know that this will be the case. When we tried locally having different restrictions in different regions that didn’t really make any difference. So I don’t think thinking about a localised strategy for containment will really work.’
Striking a more optimistic tone, No10 adviser Professor Steven Riley, from Imperial College London, told Times Radio there was a need to keep an eye on variants but suggested the UK was currently in a good place thanks to how effective the vaccines were.
Asked if the Indian Covid variant could ‘frustrate’ the vaccine programme, Professor Naismith said not enough was known to say for sure.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The vaccines don’t 100 per cent prevent infection for people. What they do, is they almost 100 per cent prevent hospitalisation and serious illness.
‘We don’t know enough to know yet whether the Indian strain will behave differently than that.
‘So even the regular virus can infect people who have been vaccinated and sometimes you do get reinfection. And the very, very large number of cases in India mean things that are rare will be detected.’
It came after the environment secretary yesterday said the Government ‘can’t rule anything out’ when it comes to localised lockdowns and trying to get on top of the Indian variant.
He told Sky News: ‘We want to try and avoid having to get into a tiered system and regionalisation, we tried that last autumn and in the end we had to go for full lockdown.
‘But there is always a risk and the greatest risk we have is a new variant that will come in that the vaccine is less effective against it.’
Quizzed about the lockdown-easing timetable, SAGE’s Professor Riley told Times Radio it would be a political decision but suggested the vaccines would prevent rising infections turning into a wave of hospitalisations.
He added: ‘Whether the restrictions run on a timetable is a Government decision and it’s just not useful to try and speculate what they will do.
‘I think there’s two key things that have got to be kind of evaluated: if infections go up, how quickly will they go up… but then after that, are they linked to the hospitalisations?
‘The top-line Government policy is driven by protecting the NHS, so even if infection starts to go up, we then need to assess whether that’s bringing a lot of new cases into hospitals, and there’s certainly no sign of that at the moment.’
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has called for over-16s in Bolton and the wider Greater Manchester area to be offered Covid vaccines earlier to quell the rise in cases of the Indian variant in Bolton.
Residents there today expressed fears to MailOnline that the rise of the strain could jeopardise the easing of the lockdown and prevent normal life from returning.
Businessman Dalawar Majeed, 42, who visited India earlier this year, before it was placed on the red list said: ‘It’s been a disastrous year financially and just when I was hoping that things would improve, we’ve now been hit with this Indian variant.
‘I was in India visiting family in January at the situation was not that bad out there. There are many people in this town with ties to the country and regularly travel there and have obviously brought this strain back.’
Frank Sullivan, 56 said: ‘I was really looking forward to sitting inside a pub and having a pint. The concern now is that given the Indian variant, that might not happen.
‘The Government have already said that they might introduce local lockdowns so if things continue as they are, Bolton might be one of those places. It’s a big worry for us all.’
Concerns over the spread of the variant have further increased as three-day Eid al-Fitr celebrations begin marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan for Muslims across the world.
Bolton has a large Muslim population, many of them originating from India.
Shah Ahmed, a member of a local mosque said: ‘The mosques have been making announcements telling people not to visit each other’s homes, hug and to maintain social distancing.
‘But that is going to be very hard to implement. Eid is a festival that brings families and friends together, people have had a very had year and they are going to want to celebrate in the way they traditionally do.’
Surge testing has been rolled out in Bolton and nearby Blackburn with Darwen where outbreaks have grown by 93 and 86 per cent in a week, respectively, with more than half of lab-checked cases proven to be the Indian strain.
Trevor Lee, 55 was waiting for his wife Caroline, 49 outside a vaccination centre.
He said: ‘There seem to be so many variants floating around I just can’t keep up with it. To be honest, I’ve stopped following the news because it just gets me too worried. I’m going to carry on as normal and continued taking all the precautions.’
Caroline added: ‘I’ve just had my vaccine and I’m going to make sure that I get tested regularly because this Indian variant is very worrying for all of us. I just don’t think we’re ever going to see the back of this coronavirus problem.’
Ray Cumberstone, 42 said: ‘We should all be worried because we don’t know how quickly this strain can spread.
‘The good thing is that the authorities have picked up on this quite quickly so I’m praying that they will be able to control it before things get out of hand.’
Gillian Callaghan, 56 said: ‘I have had both vaccines, but it seems that with this Indian variant that might not be enough. Both my husband and I get tested regularly and we’re going to continue with that, even though we’ve both had the jabs.’
This map shows the spread of the Indian variant across the UK. It is focused in key hotspots, and around Greater London
Public Health England data show how infection rates have been rising for the past fortnight in some areas of the North West and central England
Cases in Bolton have begun to rise in recent days as the variant takes hold in the area
Blackburn with Darwen is also seeing virus cases beginning to tick up, reversing a four-month long trend of plummeting infections
Bedford, where the variant may make up more than 70 per cent of cases, is also seeing a rise
South Northamptonshire is starting to see its Covid cases rise, official data shows
Professor James Naismith (left), a structural biologist at Oxford University, claimed the strain will eventually ‘get everywhere’ as the Kent variant did when it emerged in the South East last autumn. Striking a more optimistic tone, SAGE adviser Professor Steven Riley (right), from Imperial College London, told Times Radio there was a need to keep an eye on variants but suggested the UK was currently in a good place
Her daughter Amy, 28 added: ‘We were hoping to go on a family holiday to Scotland at the end of August. My fear is that if this variant gets out of control then they might lock Bolton down and that would be a disaster for us all.’
Nicola Sturgeon tweeted last night that officials were ‘monitoring very closely’ the Indian variant’s spread in Glasgow after cases rose above 50 per 100,000 – Scotland’s threshold for easing restrictions. Infections have doubled since the end of April.
Yesterday it was revealed that India‘s Covid variant is now dominant in four local authorities in England and its rapid spread could jeopardise plans to ease lockdown.
Analysis by one of the UK’s biggest variant trackers warned the strain is focused in hotspots Bolton and neighbour Blackburn with Darwen, where outbreaks have grown by 93 and 86 per cent in a week, respectively, with more than half of lab-checked cases proven to be the Indian strain.
It came as the UK yesterday confirmed another 2,284 positive tests, up seven per cent on last Wednesday’s figure, along with 11 more deaths. Another 485,260 vaccines were given out yesterday, of which 350,000 were second doses.
Early lab trials suggest the current vaccines will still protect against the Indian variants but there are concerns that a faster rate of spread could lead to a bigger outbreak, giving more opportunities for people to get reinfected.
AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine appears to be protecting people from the Indian variant of the virus, reports suggest.
And Pfizer said in a report there was ‘no evidence’ its shot would need to be updated to fight off the current variants.
Data shows that seven out of England’s 10 Covid hotspots are in the North of England with three in the Midlands (Erewash, Bedford and North Lincolnshire), while the places where positive tests are rising fastest are scattered across the country. There are not yet conclusive links to the variant.
There are three Indian variants but only B.1.617.2 has sparked major concerns because cases have doubled in the past week, with 520 officially spotted since the first positive sample was detected in late February.
It now makes up six per cent of cases nationally, a leap from fewer than one per cent last month.
Some scientists have criticised Boris Johnson’s plan to push on with lockdown easing on Monday, warning the rising cases and spread of the Indian variant suggest he should ‘absolutely’ hit the pause button until further research is carried out on its impact on the jab.
Sanger Institute figures on the variants aim to exclude cases from international travellers and surge testing, revealing how troublesome variants spread in the community.
For this reason their data do not include every case of the Indian variant identified. It is also impossible to sequence a strain from every swab because some contain too few virus particles.
Bolton had the most cases of the Indian variant in England over the week to April 24, their data showed. There were 47 samples spotted (55 per cent of all cases in that area).
It was followed by neighbouring Blackburn with Darwen, with lab sequencing spotting 19 genetic matches (55.7 per cent).
Ten were also found in Bedford over the same period (53.8 per cent) and five in South Northamptonshire (76.9 per cent).
But University College London mathematician Professor Christina Pagel cited other Sanger Institute data suggesting the strain may already be responsible for more than 65 per cent of cases in the hotspots.
She found 75 per cent of those in the community in Blackburn with Darwen were down to the variant, and as many as 73 per cent in Bedford and 69 per cent in Bolton.
![ONS figures show that the proportion of people testing positive for coronavirus antibodies increases with age, with an average of 92.3 per cent of over-65s showing signs of immunity. [Dark blue line shows antibody positive rate, green line shows estimate of how many people have had their first vaccine dose and light blue is second vaccine doses]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/05/13/11/42937566-9572939-ONS_figures_show_that_the_proportion_of_people_testing_positive_-a-20_1620901975875.jpg)
ONS figures show that the proportion of people testing positive for coronavirus antibodies increases with age, with an average of 92.3 per cent of over-65s showing signs of immunity. [Dark blue line shows antibody positive rate, green line shows estimate of how many people have had their first vaccine dose and light blue is second vaccine doses]
Charts show how the high levels of antibodies seen in the UK’s oldest populations are being caught up by younger people as the vaccine rollout extends to lower age groups.
The ZOE Covid Symptom Study app found the number of symptomatic Covid cases caught a day had risen by 65 per cent in a week to 2,800. But they said any infections in vaccinated people tended to be milder
Test and Trace data showed the number of Covid cases transferred to the system had fallen by nine per cent compared to last week at 14,300. But this was a much smaller drop than in previous weeks
Department of Health data shows Covid cases were ticking upwards in all three areas in the week to May 9, a reversal on a four-month trend of plummeting infections.
Surge testing was only launched in Bolton four days ago, but officials say it will take about a week before it shows up in the statistics.
Bolton has registered 707 new Covid cases over the two weeks since April 24, which means the true number of cases of the Indian variant spotted there could be in the region of 400. Cases jumped by 93 per cent in the space of a week.
There were 241 Covid cases in Bolton over the week to May 1, and 466 in the week to May 8, a surge of 93 per cent.
And Blackburn with Darwen had 229 infections over the same time period, indicating they may have more than 130 cases of the strain. This was a jump of 86 per cent.
When official data was broken down to a more granular level it showed that five of the ten worst-hit neighbourhoods in the country were in Bolton.
This is despite more than 50 per cent of people in the same postcode areas having already been vaccinated.
