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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Jb85
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Matt N
TS Member
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I think local restrictions would be an interesting way of containing it, as I’d argue that they seem to have had mixed success throughout the UK’s pandemic.
One of the more successful examples of localised measures we’ve seen in the UK is surge testing being applied to areas with variants of concern; the South Africa variant was causing a similarly concerning situation a few months ago, but the surge testing being applied to areas where the South Africa variant had been logged did seem to really drive down the spread and stop the South Africa variant from spreading out of control. The SA variant could have escalated into a real crisis for the UK had it been allowed to spread unrestricted, what with it having the E484K mutation that can allegedly bypass antibodies (for clarity, the Indian variant doesn’t have E484K, which is why it wasn’t initially designated a VoC), but the excellent surge testing has meant that it’s been little more than a drop in the ocean thus far; there’s still been less than 1,000 cases of it in the UK, and we’re a good few months on from when it first began spreading. Thankfully, surge testing is now being applied in areas where the India variant is more widespread, as well as surge vaccines, so hopefully that might stop it from developing too much.
On the flip side, a less successful version of localised measures was the local lockdown scheme, which later evolved into the tier system, which was utilised during 2020. While I won’t deny that local lockdowns/tiers are both decent concepts that were introduced with good intentions, and I think local lockdowns/the tier system might have worked with a few tweaks, I think the rules were ultimately quite hard to enforce on a regional basis. Short of physically blockading in high risk areas, there’s not really too much you can do to stop traffic in and out of local lockdown areas, and I think that is where the initiative ultimately fell down. I do think this strategy would work with a few tweaks, however, so I wouldn’t exclude it entirely.
Personally, I think localised measures might work in this context, or at least should be tried before resorting to national measures. Currently, the Indian variant is only really widespread in a very small number of areas, and case rises still only seem to be happening in a very isolated context in a small number of regions. The UK’s overall case trend is still very much going downwards, and the hospitalisations & deaths are still falling quite sharply countrywide; I think I even saw that something like 2/3 of local authorities now have little to no COVID, so the regional disparity is now growing stronger. As such, I personally think that localised measures exclusively for hotspots like Bolton are at least worth attempting at the current moment as opposed to national measures.
One of the more successful examples of localised measures we’ve seen in the UK is surge testing being applied to areas with variants of concern; the South Africa variant was causing a similarly concerning situation a few months ago, but the surge testing being applied to areas where the South Africa variant had been logged did seem to really drive down the spread and stop the South Africa variant from spreading out of control. The SA variant could have escalated into a real crisis for the UK had it been allowed to spread unrestricted, what with it having the E484K mutation that can allegedly bypass antibodies (for clarity, the Indian variant doesn’t have E484K, which is why it wasn’t initially designated a VoC), but the excellent surge testing has meant that it’s been little more than a drop in the ocean thus far; there’s still been less than 1,000 cases of it in the UK, and we’re a good few months on from when it first began spreading. Thankfully, surge testing is now being applied in areas where the India variant is more widespread, as well as surge vaccines, so hopefully that might stop it from developing too much.
On the flip side, a less successful version of localised measures was the local lockdown scheme, which later evolved into the tier system, which was utilised during 2020. While I won’t deny that local lockdowns/tiers are both decent concepts that were introduced with good intentions, and I think local lockdowns/the tier system might have worked with a few tweaks, I think the rules were ultimately quite hard to enforce on a regional basis. Short of physically blockading in high risk areas, there’s not really too much you can do to stop traffic in and out of local lockdown areas, and I think that is where the initiative ultimately fell down. I do think this strategy would work with a few tweaks, however, so I wouldn’t exclude it entirely.
Personally, I think localised measures might work in this context, or at least should be tried before resorting to national measures. Currently, the Indian variant is only really widespread in a very small number of areas, and case rises still only seem to be happening in a very isolated context in a small number of regions. The UK’s overall case trend is still very much going downwards, and the hospitalisations & deaths are still falling quite sharply countrywide; I think I even saw that something like 2/3 of local authorities now have little to no COVID, so the regional disparity is now growing stronger. As such, I personally think that localised measures exclusively for hotspots like Bolton are at least worth attempting at the current moment as opposed to national measures.
Jonathan
TS Member
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They’re really trying hard to stop you from going to Crevette’s, aren’t they?
The outbreak in Erewash is at a school and is nothing to do with the Indian variant, this outbreak is the Kent one.
I’m really against reversing the easing of restrictions, we have suffered enough and need to get things open again, as has been said hardly anyone over 60 is catching it even in the Asian communities that brought this variant through our porous borders.
Pat on the bar already calls me the harbinger of doom.They’re really trying hard to stop you from going to Crevette’s, aren’t they?
I told her last February that the park would probably be forced to close by Easter for a few months...we had a little primer on epidemiology.
Craig
TS Administrator
The new variant is a concern, but the early statistics look really good in terms of how well the vaccine is performing against it. That by no means should result in us being complacent about it, but it's a positive to take nonetheless. I know many are concerned, but to put people's minds at rest, here's a graph showing daily hospital admissions in the North West up until the last report today. As you can see they're relatively static. Considering the vast majority of hospital admissions would be in the vaccine priority groups and it's been a good few weeks that this variant has been in circulation, that's very positive news:
One thing that really needs to be made clear, the variant's spread is on the government in the first instance, mainly thanks to their lack of action over India despite their explosion of cases. I fear we'll end up with yet another situation like we had where Chinese people were being targeted last year when the vast majority of people haven't even been abroad. For the people that did travel, they did so under the restrictions which the government clearly failed to tighten early or quickly enough.
One thing that really needs to be made clear, the variant's spread is on the government in the first instance, mainly thanks to their lack of action over India despite their explosion of cases. I fear we'll end up with yet another situation like we had where Chinese people were being targeted last year when the vast majority of people haven't even been abroad. For the people that did travel, they did so under the restrictions which the government clearly failed to tighten early or quickly enough.
Matt N
TS Member
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Promisingly, Boris Johnson was asked about the India variant earlier today in an interview, and while he said that he was “concerned” by it and that he was “ruling nothing out”, he also said that there was “nothing to indicate that the roadmap would need to change”.
He also said that the government was implementing Andy Burnham’s suggestion of “surge vaccines”, as well as surge testing, within the most affected regions.
It’s worth noting that I think the government is more worried about hospitalisations and deaths than cases on their own, so unless the India variant brings about a drastic growth in hospitalisations and deaths, I don’t think the government feels the need to do anything too drastic. The vaccines do apparently seem to be working effectively against it, so I guess they can do most of the heavy lifting in terms of preventing hospitalisations.
He also said that the government was implementing Andy Burnham’s suggestion of “surge vaccines”, as well as surge testing, within the most affected regions.
It’s worth noting that I think the government is more worried about hospitalisations and deaths than cases on their own, so unless the India variant brings about a drastic growth in hospitalisations and deaths, I don’t think the government feels the need to do anything too drastic. The vaccines do apparently seem to be working effectively against it, so I guess they can do most of the heavy lifting in terms of preventing hospitalisations.
Craig
TS Administrator
The impact of new variants are one of the four government tests to removing stages of lockdown - the others being the vaccine programme continuing successfully, hospitalisations and deaths continuing to be reduced by the vaccines, infection rates not risking new hospitalisations and deaths and the assessment of risks not being changed by those new variants.
So vaccines are fine, hospitalisations and deaths are fine, however the last two maybe not so much. However, despite that it would take a hell of a lot to delay things happening on Monday. I think the new variants do potentially risk a few things from the 21st June (mask wearing, social distancing on transport etc), but in general I can see most things returning to opening up. Time will tell if the government are willing to revert to local lockdowns. Whilst they're a pain, at least if they couple it with surge vaccinations it would give people a roadmap to them actually being removed, rather than being left in limbo for an excessive period of time.
imanautie
TS Member
A few transport operators like arriva UK bus are already saying they expect to have passengers sitting next to others come Monday.
Alsty
TS Member
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Don't know why they think that. Social distancing with strangers is still the official advice until at least 21st June.
imanautie
TS Member
Me neither but it's a marked change from The current "bus full? Guess you're walking" policy.
Dave
TS Founding Member
As Craig says this is entirely the governments fault, their desperation to have a trade deal with India stopped them bringing in travel restrictions. Due to this high level of incompetence I expect their poll numbers to increase as it seems this country awards outright idiocy.
I’m not really in favour of regional restrictions, for a start they only really get considered when it’s the north that is the problem, with the exception of Christmas every time the south is in trouble we get a national lockdown. But more than that they don’t work. Regional restrictions are effective in countries much larger than the UK, but we are too small. Shutting down Bolton is not going to stop the virus spreading to Manchester and then further.
If it was me I would surge vaccinate these areas and the immediate surroundings. We have everyone over 40 offered a 1st dose now, so we can be more surgical about it.
I’m not really in favour of regional restrictions, for a start they only really get considered when it’s the north that is the problem, with the exception of Christmas every time the south is in trouble we get a national lockdown. But more than that they don’t work. Regional restrictions are effective in countries much larger than the UK, but we are too small. Shutting down Bolton is not going to stop the virus spreading to Manchester and then further.
If it was me I would surge vaccinate these areas and the immediate surroundings. We have everyone over 40 offered a 1st dose now, so we can be more surgical about it.
Rob
TS Team
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Surge testing with enhanced contact tracing, along with surge vaccinations, appear to be the best way to combat these localised outbreaks of the Indian variant for now. I am wary of new local lockdowns coming in, not least because it can be very hard to escape from a local lockdown as seen in Leicester last year. Local lockdowns are not as effective as national lockdowns and although they do bring case numbers down they can stuggle to bring them down to the levels needed to escape restrictions. That could be different now that we have vaccinations of course.
Local outbreaks can be contained though. The outbreak in Leicester early last summer never really broke out in to the County.
Local outbreaks can be contained though. The outbreak in Leicester early last summer never really broke out in to the County.
jon81uk
TS Member
I don't think there is a major suggestion of reversing restrictions (at least nationally) just not going ahead with something that I think was always very optimistic anyway. From Monday things will already be more relaxed than they were last summer with theatres able to open. It really is just nightclubs as the only thing that won't be allowed to open. Yes distancing will still be in place, but I think we will be a lot more like last autumn with a tier system for a while yet. Hopefully track and trace can improve further too.
Some scientists are suggesting the June lifting of restrictions may not go ahead of the Indian variant takes hold.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57109660
Again I just find it totally mind boggling that we restrict holidays abroad to prevent new variants coming in and yet allowed all those flights in from India, when we know there was a MAJOR outbreak of new variant AND we didn’t bother even testing the new arrivals. Absolutely bonkers!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57109660
Again I just find it totally mind boggling that we restrict holidays abroad to prevent new variants coming in and yet allowed all those flights in from India, when we know there was a MAJOR outbreak of new variant AND we didn’t bother even testing the new arrivals. Absolutely bonkers!
Dave
TS Founding Member
As I say the government is completely incompetent, so I’m sure we will be voting for them in droves at the next election……
shakey
TS Member
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Even if the government had stopped flights from India when the new variant was discovered it would still have been too late. By the time a new variant is identified it will have been in circulation for several weeks (maybe months) and most likely already travelled to the UK.
The only way to stop new variants from coming in is to ban foreign travel completely unless it is absolutely essential.
But even then you can still get mutations from within the UK. (e.g the Kent variant)
We just have to hope that the vaccines continue to work.
The only way to stop new variants from coming in is to ban foreign travel completely unless it is absolutely essential.
But even then you can still get mutations from within the UK. (e.g the Kent variant)
We just have to hope that the vaccines continue to work.
Danza91
TS Member
I do feel like the reaction to Indiant variant has been a bit much, considering, unless I've missed something, there's nothing to suggest it escapes vaccines. We are in a much different position to say early December last year as we have given doses to 35m people.
New variants are going to emerge for some time to come, and local restrictions are completely pointless in a country like the UK, we just have to get on with things.
New variants are going to emerge for some time to come, and local restrictions are completely pointless in a country like the UK, we just have to get on with things.
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Rob
TS Team
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You're right, there is currently no evidence that this variant can escape vaccines. There is some thought that it might be a little bit more resistant but not as much as the South Africa or Brazil variants. So that is positive!
The potentially bigger issue as Craig previously pointed out is what impact this might have on the government's 4 tests for easing lockdown:
- The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully - no problems here, still going well
- Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated - good evidence for this, reports today suggest the vaccines have so far saved 11,700 lives which is phenomenal
- Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS - not yet, but if the rapid increase in cases seen in Bolton becomes widespread this could become an issue. Although it depends what unsustainable pressue on the NHS is actuallt defined as, I would argue it is essential that we ensure the NHS has sufficient capacity to work on the enourmous backlock of non-Covid treatment
- Our assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new Variants of Concern - a variant that is more tranmissible than the Kent variant would mean different risks that would need to be considered, especially if this become the domiant variant in the UK
I like the surge vaccination idea for areas where we are getting clusters of new variants. Although there is a 2-3 week lag before you see any impact this method apparently worked quite well in France not so long ago.
As far as I can tell from looking at the data it is only Bolton that has seen a dramtic increase in cases. Other local authority areas of concern are showing increase but these are more steady so far. So hopefully Bolton just turns out to be somewhat of a unique case.