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BBC’s Ros Atkins has disputed claims that Boris Johnson was slow to act on the Delta variant. Boris Johnson and No 10 has come under fire for not banning travel from India sooner following the Delta variant’s emergence in April. In an analysis for BBC, Mr Atkins pointed out that the UK was “not out of sync” by banning travel from India on the 23rd April.
He said: “Timing isn’t the whole story.
“The UAE brought in more restrictions on travellers from India on the 22nd April, France on the 24th April, and the US did not impose restrictions until 4th May.
“Remember, the UK was the 23rd April. It wasn’t out of sync with these countries.”
The WHO has since confirmed that the Delta variant is now present in over 60 countries.
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Mr Atkins continued: “In June, Dr Scott Gottlieb in the US said that the Delta variant was doubling every two weeks so it’s probably going to become the dominant strain here.
“So why is the UK particularly affected? It could be the volume of people who came in.”
He cited Dr Jeffrey Barrett, who explained: “If you get one introduction, even of a transmissible variant, there’s a decent chance it fizzles out and doesn’t create a big outbreak.
“If you get 100, 500, or 1,000 introductions it’s very hard to avoid that some of them will go on to seed big outbreaks.”
A total of 75,953 cases of Delta were found in the UK up to 16 June, up from 42,323 the previous week.
There are now growing concerns about the coronavirus virus in Europe, with the Delta strain now taking hold in Portugal.
It has also appeared in clusters across Germany, France and Spain, prompting European health officials to warn further action is needed.
According to the FT, the Delta variant now accounts for 96 percent of COVID-19 infections in Portugal, more than 20 percent in Italy and about 16 percent in Belgium.
France’s health minister, Olivier Véran, said on Tuesday: “We are in the process of crushing the virus and crushing the pandemic, and we must in no way let the Delta variant get the upper hand.”
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