So is the ‘irreversible’ lifting of lockdown really irreversible after all? There is a grim echo of what happened last year in the sudden panic over the Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he ‘rules nothing out’, following a meeting of the Sage committee over how to respond to the variant. Next month’s proposed reopening of society must now look in doubt. Monday’s relaxation, which will allow indoor hospitality for the first time this year, will for the moment go ahead, but we have seen how quickly these things can change — and with what little notice.
Is the Indian variant really more transmissible, or vaccine-evading, to the point that it threatens to reverse the fall in case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths over the past few months? Or is the rise in cases in certain parts of the country really just a reflection of low vaccination take-up in those places?
All eyes in the past few days have been on Bolton, the epicentre of the Indian variant in Britain, with 47 cases so far recorded there.
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