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The new and more contagious strain of Covid-19 that first appeared in southeastern England was already spreading rapidly, even during the country’s second blockade in November, according to a report published Thursday by scientists at Imperial College London.
A report by scientists at Imperial College London released on December 31 estimated that the new coronavirus strain tripled its number of infections in England during the November blockade, while the number of new cases caused by the previous variant decreased by a third.
The new strain recorded a higher reproduction rate (R) – which determines how contagious a disease is based on the number of people infected by each infected person – from 0.7 to 0.4 from the previous strain, even with “high levels of social distance ”during the prenatal block.
An R rate must be less than 1 for the number of new cases to start decreasing. The UK government’s latest estimate of the R rate for the United Kingdom as a whole, published on December 23, was between 1.1 and 1.3.
The emergence of the new Covid-19 strain led more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the United Kingdom in late December, many of which were later suspended. France reported its first case of the new variant on its soil on December 25.
“There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,” Axel Gandy, a statistician at Imperial College London and co-author of the report, told the BBC. “This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,” he said.
Imperial College’s research also found that the new strain was initially spreading more rapidly among people under the age of 20, but then began to spread to other age groups.
“The first data were collected during the November blockade period, when schools were open and adult activities were more restricted,” said Gandy. “We are now seeing that the new virus has increased infectivity in all age groups,” he continued.
The government imposed blockade measures in areas that cover 78 percent of the English population on Wednesday, while regional officials in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have also brought in confinement measures.
Intensive care units in London and the surrounding south-east exceeded their capacity on December 29, with occupancy reaching 114 and 113 percent, respectively, according to NHS data leaked for specialized publication by the Health Services Journal. In response, the government activated one of its Nightingale hospitals – designed to deal exclusively with Covid-19 patients, thereby relieving pressure from overburdened hospitals – in London on December 31.
The Imperial College report suggested that keeping schools closed after the Christmas holidays will help to stem the spread of the virus: “A particular concern is whether it will be possible to maintain control over transmission and, at the same time, allow schools to reopen in January”. The government extended the Christmas holidays until January 11, when high schools in England are expected to resume school attendance. Students will return to English primary schools on January 4, except for the most serious spots of viruses, including London.
It is “inevitable” that schools must be closed to prevent the new Covid-19 variant from getting out of control, Deepti Gurdasani, clinical epidemiologist and senior professor at Queen Mary, University of London, told the Financial Times.
The death toll from Covid-19 reached 981 on Wednesday, the highest daily rate since the coronavirus emerged in the spring. Overall, the UK has seen more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, while its death toll is over 74,000, the second largest in Europe after Italy and the sixth largest in the world.
The government will have to accelerate the launch of vaccines if it wants to contain the new Covid-19 strain, suggested its scientific advisory committee on December 22, warning that “current vaccination rates should not significantly change the epidemiology” of the virus.
The United Kingdom was the first western country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs for emergency use. Authorities have so far distributed one million vaccines, Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote in a tweet. More than 940,000 people received their first injection, the BBC reported.