LONDON – About half of England is under the country’s most stringent blocking measures, and people have been ordered to stay home, but the coronavirus is still spreading at an alarming rate. Hospitals are treating more patients than at any time during the pandemic, the number of new infections has reached a daily record and there is a growing debate about allowing tens of thousands of students to return to classrooms after the holiday.
Scientists in the country said that an apparently more contagious variant of the virus is causing the increase in cases and, with severe restrictions already imposed on more than 48 million people, it is unclear what other tools the government has at its disposal to combat the outbreak under control.
There were 53,135 new laboratory-confirmed cases reported on Tuesday, the highest number so far in a single day. The National Health Service said there are now more than 20,000 people in British hospitals, more than at the peak of the pandemic in April.
With the government scheduled to assess its restrictions on Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under pressure to impose another national blockade and transfer students – especially older ones in colleges and high schools, who can be more easily infected with the new variant. of the virus – for remote learning.
Some expect to see the number of cases drop daily due to restrictions imposed on London and the south and east of England at Christmas time start to have an effect.
But a potent combination of a new strain of the virus, an imminent return to schools and a move that allowed people in low-risk areas to gather indoors on Christmas Day raised fears that the worst could come in the new year.
“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.
A growing body of research supports the concern that the new variant of the virus may be more than 50% more contagious than those that are already spreading rapidly in wide circulation.
And the variant continued to emerge in countries around the world, despite bans on British travelers enforced by dozens of countries.
The British government used an arsenal of tools now known to keep the variant under control, increasing restrictions on movement, closing deals and limiting the number of people who can gather.
Although employees blame the variant for the increase in cases, many of the rules are difficult to apply on a large scale and it is difficult to know what role individual behavior may be playing.
Johnson’s handling of the pandemic was marked by last-minute decisions and setbacks, fueling public skepticism and anger, but the government tried to hold the line to keep schools open.
Since the summer, the government has prioritized keeping students in classrooms, even in areas that had major outbreaks and during the country’s second national blockade in November. After students spent the first months of the pandemic in online classes at home, Mr. Johnson in August called the reopening of schools a “moral duty” and promised that, in the event of a resurgence of the virus, “the last thing we want to do is to close schools. ”
Britain’s approach was similar to that of many European countries, where leaders feared that the closure of schools would once again accentuate inequalities and irreparably harm children’s academic and emotional development.
But as the number of coronavirus cases skyrocketed, Germany and the Netherlands have closed schools again and many British teachers are calling for it.
The government promised a staggered return to schools in January and said it would rely on mass testing to prevent the virus from spreading to schools, using the military to help.
Although about 1,500 soldiers have been put on standby to provide schools with “the guidance, materials and funding they need to offer rapid tests to their staff and students since the beginning of the period,” according to Britain’s secretary of education. , Gavin Williamson, most support will be provided remotely, through online sessions and over the phone.
Most school-aged children will have to clean themselves, under the supervision of a school official or volunteer.
“1,500 soldiers taking webinars is probably not the government response we were looking for,” Geoff Barton, the secretary general of the Association of School and University Leaders, a union, told the BBC.
The country’s two largest education unions – the National Education Union and NASUWT – also criticized the last-minute nature of the mass testing plan and wrote to Johnson on Monday, asking for additional security measures and more time to put it up. put them into practice.
The country’s scientific advisory group, known as SAGE, recommended not to allow classrooms to reopen, according to British media reports.
Scientists said coronavirus cases in Britain would go out of control unless schools closed in the new year. The scientific advisory group believes that closing schools in January would allow a reduction in the number of infections.
Even though the country’s health workers are under increasing pressure to treat the flow of patients, they are also being asked to accelerate the most ambitious mass vaccination program in the country’s history.
About 200,000 people are getting their first injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine every week. With the approval of a vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford expected in the coming days, the number of doses available is expected to expand dramatically.
There is no evidence that vaccines are less effective against the variant of the virus that spreads in Britain, and remain the best chance for the country to break the current wave of infection.
But to fulfill the government’s promise to vaccinate everyone over 50 by spring, the speed of delivery would have to be 10 times faster than now.
Nick Davies, assistant professor of mathematical modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that rapid vaccination should lessen the impact of the new variant.
“Achieving 2 million vaccinations / week can substantially reduce the burden,” he wrote on Twitter. The current level of 200,000 a week “does not have much impact”.
This will require not only supply, but labor to deliver the vaccines. And that means even more pressure on healthcare professionals.
Dr. Rebecca Lewis, a surgeon who works at a London hospital and secretary of the Association of Physicians, described how exhausted health professionals are, with little time to recover. Staff illness, she said, has reached critical levels. The requirements on the use of protective equipment have not yet been revised in the light of the new strain, she said, and may be playing a role on the front lines of workers who contract the virus.
The implementation of vaccination in the country needs to be accelerated, Lewis said on Tuesday, adding that, in addition to the elderly and vulnerable, vaccination of doctors should be a priority.
Dr. Lewis said she expects worse days ahead.
“We know that mid-January will be horrible,” she said.
Marc Santora reported from London and Anna Schaverien from Brighton, England.