As expected, the government has just announced more areas of England are to move to Tier 4 from Boxing Day in an attempt to slow the spread of the new variant of coronavirus. But rather more unexpectedly, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told this afternoon’s Downing Street press conference that a second, highly transmissible, new strain which ‘appears to have mutated further’ has been found in two people who were contacts of cases who had travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks.
Hancock was at pains to seem apologetic to those affected by the new restrictions, telling people in those areas that the government was ‘truly sorry’. He also insisted that ministers had moved fast whenever they received new information – something that is disputed by those working behind the scenes on the health service’s response to rising hospital admissions.
But there were questions he did not want to give a definitive answer to – presumably because he knows that it is better to leave wriggle room rather than to rule things out, as Boris Johnson often does before being forced to U-turn just a few days later.
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