The nCoV strain exposes the UK's weakness in fighting the epidemic 6
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government did not drastically impose an entry ban on people from India from the beginning, even though the number of cases infected with the nCoV B.1.617 variant skyrocketed in the country.
Having been engulfed by Covid-19 with the highest number of deaths in Europe, Britain quickly bet on vaccines to escape the pandemic.
In the past half year, the UK has injected more than 59.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, enough to protect more than 44.3% of the country’s population.
But this week, British officials confirmed that the B.1.617 variant has spread in 86 areas of the country, including areas in northwest England and Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city.
Germany announced last weekend that it would impose new restrictions on Britain.
`We need to respond faster. We cannot wait until we have a firm confirmation of the epidemic threat in the UK or an external location to act,` said Paul Hunter, a medical expert at the University of East Anglia.
Covid-19 patient was brought to the Royal London Hospital, England on January 10.
Commercial considerations may have delayed the British government’s decision to close borders with India.
The agreements prepared by Lister will be signed when Johnson plans to visit India in April. The British Prime Minister hopes that the first trip in the `post-Brexit` era will open a new chapter for policy.
Diplomats and aides persuaded Johnson to stick to his trade negotiations plan with India, despite epidemiological concerns from the government’s team of scientific advisers.
In early April, the British government’s specialized committee on Covid-19 put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the `red list` to restrict entry because of the risk of disease.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the parliamentary session on May 19.
Lack of information is not the only reason Britain gave for not putting India on the `red list`.
After a month of monitoring the situation, on April 14, the British Prime Minister’s Office announced that the trip to India had been scaled down from four days to one day.
Britain put India on its entry ban list on April 19, but the order was postponed for 4 days and did not take effect until the early morning of April 23.
`India should have been put on the red list from the beginning`, expert Hunter shared, and assessed that the delay in closing the border combined with the decision to extend the 4-day extension for people from India to flow into the UK has caused the situation.
Delayed border closure made the UK pay the price when B.1.617 gradually became the main strain in the country.
In recent times, the British government has been struggling to relax and then tighten the social distancing order to cope with community infection.
According to Mark Woolhouse, an infectious disease expert at the University of Edinburgh, the risk of B.1.351, the nCoV variant from South Africa, entering and spreading in the UK will cause more worry than the outbreak of variants from India.
Mutations in B.1.351 may neutralize some effects from the vaccine.
`The current situation was already predictable. In about 6 months, I’m sure we will be talking about a new mutation again,` Woolhouse warned.
