LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s government needs to impose stricter rules on blocking coronavirus to prevent a new wave of deaths from a new strain of the disease, a leading epidemiologist and government adviser warned on Tuesday.
Britain reported 41,385 new cases of COVID on Monday, the highest number since tests became widely available in mid-2020, and British hospitals say they have more patients with COVID than during the first wave of the pandemic in April.
“We are entering a very dangerous new phase of the pandemic and we will need early and decisive national action to prevent a catastrophe in January and February,” said Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London.
More than 71,000 people died in Britain in 28 days after a positive test for the disease.
Hayward, who is part of a British government advisory body on respiratory illnesses, said the new strain of COVID, according to which infected people meant more easily than existing blocking measures in England, would probably not be enough to slow the spread disease.
On December 26, the government of Great Britain expanded the stricter level of COVID restrictions, under which non-essential retailers are closed and most people cannot meet in person, to cover almost half of England’s population.
Hayward told the BBC that these curbs need to be extended further.
“We are really looking at a situation where we are almost closing in,” he said.
Schools in England are expected to reopen for many students on January 4. Hayward said that from a purely epidemiological point of view, it would make sense to keep them closed for longer, but the difficulties that the poorest students face in learning online mean restrictions in other areas of public life may be preferable.
Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have defined their own policies on schools and measures to combat COVID.
Reporting by David Milliken, Paul Sandle edition