Indian Variant Out-Competing other UK variants

One thing I struggle to understand is, in the past the Government have said that xx variant has been found in here and there, it's mentioned for a few days then all of a sudden it goes quiet, they've done this with the Brazilian and South African variant.

I think it was last week where they said the variant had been found in parts of London and Leicester, again it was mentioned for a day or two then all of a sudden nothing.
I agree with that. Every new variant is scarier than the last. Is the vaccine working or not? If it is I don't give a toss let's crack on
 
Viruses when they mutate tend to become less deadly but can be more infectious. It’s an organic survival strategy for them. Killing the host before it can spread is not in the virus’ interest. Yes, I realise viruses do not think and I am being somewhat anthropomorphic. But this virus is so infectious it can infect millions of people quickly and that’s where the statistical randomness of gene mutation comes in.

The more cases, into the millions, then the greater the number of mutations. Many mutations could be benign and can render the virus less infectious and these variants will die out, or more infectious and less deadly so they become endemic (always around). But one or two mutations amongst them all can produce the vicious strains which we see in India because of the millions of cases. And we let people travel into the UK from India with no restrictions while this was building, although we knew about it.

The serious issue with this Indian variant, along with its greater infection rate, is that it has been seen to strongly attack the under-40s, and that’s by far the largest age group in India with its relatively young population, which is why it caught on. That’s a problem for the UK too because we only just started vaxxing this younger age group so many could still get sick. Add in the transmissibility within the Asian population in towns and you can see why the scientists are worried about hospital admission numbers in certain areas.

If they do go for local lockdowns, then that has to include a huge surrounding area. There is no point in locking down just Bolton or Blackburn, as people will just go into Manchester, Chorley or Preston to carry on as normal. Lockdowns have to extend out as far as rural areas, where life styles are different, and which are too far for those in Bolton to casually travel to.

Focusing the vaxx efforts for all adults 18+ in these regions with the Indian variant seems a good policy rather than diffusing efforts into Northumbria and Cornwall etc. But the take-up really has to be almost enforced. I did say “almost”, but every effort has to be taken to get council and community leaders with the programme. If we can fine people £1000 for illegally meeting indoors, what can we do for those who will not take a jab? We might not be able to punish them or remove rights, but can we withdraw certain privileges? Or simply, should we just bribe them in some way? Those with rigid views can often be loosened with the lubricant of cash. Frankly, whatever works, it’s in all our best interests.

But we have to be careful not to unfairly blame the ethnic communities for this, otherwise we encourage discrimination. The initial blame lies at the feet of authorities who dilly-dallied when they became aware of the risk. We need clear and rapid decisions. Ironically, they probably delayed because they were afraid of being seen as racially discriminating against certain ethnic groups ! We need clear thinkers in Govt and we appear to have woolly-thinking Oxbridge Arts graduates, more concerned with their reputations than reality.
 
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Whether the Indian variant ultimately proves to be an significant issue or not the fact is it already has likely impacted on the roadmap which in turn will have a massive impact on thousands on UK businesses
And that's solely down to Johnson not placing India on the red list with Pakistan and Bangladesh during which time 20,000 entered the UK from India without having to hotel quarantine !
And all so as to not run the risk of upsetting Modi
There is no excuse for this None
 
It must not be forgotten that Boris "let the bodies pile up" Johnson was so desperate to crawl to Modi about a trade deal due to the disaster of Brexit that he was happy to let 20000 people fly in from a covid19 hotspot where a new variant was wreaking havoc.
Once again the Tories put greed over people's lives.
 
It seems we yet again delayed taking an important Covid decision ,this time regarding putting India on the red list as we had done 3 weeks previously with Pakistan and Bangladesh in which time a further 20,000 came into this country with 200 or 300 of them bringing in this new variant of Covid. Let us hope that the accelerated vaccine programme in these areas can nip this in the bud.

I would add that many of those complaining about this are also the ones who seem quite unable to manage without what to them seems to be the massively unacceptable sacrifice of not going abroad on holiday this year.Personally I think such views at this time are selfish spineless and pathetic. For heaven`s sake go to Blackpool for your hols this year!
 
A few weeks ago we were talking about the SA and Brazilian variants which it seems are dealt with by the vaccines we are using, this is another story on the same lines. All of these variants are fast spreaders which can wreak havoc and therefore we do need to help the rest of the world get vaccinated asap, to stop the spread of a vaccine dodging variant. The politics shouldn't be an issue, it's more of a matter of self interest if anything. The Indian government of course hasn't helped, in fact maybe has caused the current surge in cases there through their reckless complacency.

SA was put on the red list more than 2 months ago with a daily infection rate of 1200. Every incoming passenger from SA has gone straight to one of Boris’s Covid Hotels at £1750 for 10 days.

India was put on the red list 2 weeks ago with a daily infection rate of 350,000. Before that 3000 incoming passengers per day plus added to with charter flights to beat the deadline for arrival without hotel isolation
 
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