Indian Covid-19 variant growing in 86 local authorities in England
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Five or more cases of the Indian Covid-19 variant have been found in 86 English local authorities, with Bolton and Blackburn the two worst affected areas.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said today that there were 2,323 cases of the more transmissible Covid strain in England, with 483 of them in Bolton and Blackburn where it is the dominant variant.
The next area that is the highest concern is Bedford, with the government now implementing surge testing and vaccination as was also done in Blackburn and Bolton.
Hancock said the overwhelming evidence showed the variant is not resistant to vaccines and that most of the people who have been hospitalised with the strain have been eligible for a jab but have not had one.
“This shows the new variant is not tending to penetrate into older, vaccinated groups and underlines the importance of getting the jab, especially, but not only, amongst the most vulnerable age groups,” he said.
“While we don’t have the complete picture on the impact of the vaccine, the early laboratory data from Oxford University corroborates the provisional evidence from Bolton hospital and the initial observational data that vaccines are effective against this virus.
“This is reassuring, but the higher transmission poses a real risk. All this supports our overriding strategy which is gradually, cautiously to replace restrictions on freedom with the protection from the vaccine.”
Roadmap
Boris Johnson warned the nation on Friday that the target date of lifting most or all restrictions on 21 June may slip due to the increasing prevalence of the new Indian Covid variant.
It comes after around 120 people from India carrying the virus came into the country in April.
The government has set up a rapid response team of 100 people in Blackburn that has distributed 35,000 tests, while also setting up six new testing units and two new mass vaccination centres.
The number of vaccinations in Bolton quadrupled over the weekend, with the city experiencing the “largest surge of resources into any local area we’ve seen during the pandemic so far”, according to Hancock.
Labour shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said the government’s delay on putting India on the red travel list “surely now stands as a catastrophic misstep”.
“One month ago I urged him to act quickly in response to this variant,” he said.
“The Sanger Institute data today shows rapid increase in this variant – 30 per cent of all sequenced cases in the UK – and that excludes cases from travel and surge testing.
“Alarm bells should be ringing because while he offers reassurance that vaccines are effective, Professor Anthony Harden of the JCVI has warned that vaccine are ‘almost certainly less effective” at reducing transmission’.”