Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said today that the public should prepare for the reintroduction of restrictions at Christmas, in light of the emergence of a new covid strain in South Africa.
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, Finn said:
“On the one hand, I don’t want to induce unnecessary anxiety in people, but on the other hand, I think we all need to be ready for the possibility of a change in the restrictions.
We now need to wait and see just what kind of threat this new variant may pose. If we’re lucky, it won’t be a serious one, but it could be very serious.”
According to The Telegraph:
The Government placed six African countries on a new travel red list yesterday evening amid concerns about the variant.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, said the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the delta variant and added “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective”.
Asked what the new variant meant for Britain in the run up to Christmas, Mr Javid said: “We’ve got plans in place, as people know, for the spread of this infection here in the UK and we have contingency plans – the so-called Plan B.”
Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the new variant is the most “complex” and “worrying” seen thus far.
They’re liars, every single one of them. How do I know this? That’s pretty simple. I and others predicted this exact scenario only weeks ago. In fact, I was pretty specific.
Speaking on The Richie Allen Show I stated repeatedly that a new and even more transmissible variant would be discovered in the run-up to Christmas and that it would be used to justify the reintroduction of restrictions, and also the roll-out of vaccine passports in England.
In fairness, it was pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain.
This will get worse and worse unless we stop it. Something needs to be done and it needs to happen yesterday.
