UK
David Milliken
Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) – The government of Britain needs to establish stricter rules for blocking the coronavirus to prevent a new wave of deaths from a new variant of the virus, a leading epidemiologist warned on Tuesday.
Britain reported 41,385 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, the highest number since the tests became widely available in mid-2020, and hospitals have more patients with COVID-19 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,” Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London, told the BBC.
“We are really looking at a situation where we are almost closing in,” he said.
More than 71,000 people died in Britain in 28 days after a positive test for the disease.
Britain introduced a new level of stricter restrictions in parts of England on December 19, closing non-essential retail and mainly prohibiting people from meeting in person, because of a new variant of the coronavirus that infected people with more facility.
A week later, it extended the restrictions to a larger area, covering almost half of England’s population. But the government has so far resisted imposing a new national blockade.
Asked about Hayward’s concerns, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that the government is keeping the measures under constant review.
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-19.