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The new, more contagious strain of Covid-19 that first emerged in southeast England quickly spread, even during the country’s second lockdown in November, according to a report published Thursday by scientists at Imperial College London. .
A report by scientists at Imperial College London published Dec. 31 estimated that the new coronavirus strain tripled the number of infections in England during the November lockdown, while the number of new cases caused by the previous variant decreased by a third.
The new strain registered a higher reproduction (R) rate – which determines how contagious a disease is based on the number of people infected by each infected person – of 0.7 versus 0.4 for the previous strain, even with the “high degree of social distance”. during the lockdown for Christmas.
An R rate must be less than 1 for the number of new cases to drop. The last UK government estimate of the R rate for the UK as a whole, published on December 23, was between 1.1 and 1.3.
The emergence of the new Covid-19 strain prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the UK in late December, many of which have subsequently been lifted. France reported its first case of the new variant in its territory on December 25.
“There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,” Axel Gandy, a statistician at Imperial College London and a co-author of the report, told the BBC. “This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,” he said.
Research from Imperial College also found that the new species initially spread fastest among people under the age of 20, but then began to spread to other age groups.
“The first data was collected during the November shutdown, where schools were open and adult population activities were more limited,” said Gandy. “We now see that the new virus has increased infectivity in all age groups,” he continued.
The government reintroduced lockdown measures on Wednesday for areas covering 78 percent of the English population, while regional authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also reduced detention measures.
Intensive care units in London and the surrounding southeastern region exceeded their capacity on Dec. 29, with occupancy rates of 114 and 113 percent respectively, according to data from the NHS leaked to specialist publication the Health Services Journal. In response, on December 31, the government activated one of its Nightingale Hospitals in London – designed exclusively for Covid-19 patients, taking the pressure off overloaded hospitals.
The Imperial College report suggested that closing schools after the Christmas holidays will help control the spread of the virus: “One particular concern is whether it will be possible to maintain control over the transmission while schools reopen in January.” The government has extended the Christmas holidays to January 11, when England’s secondary schools will return to class. Students will return to English primary schools on January 4, except in the most serious virus hotspots, including London.
It is “inevitable” that schools must remain closed to keep the new Covid-19 variant from getting out of hand, Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and an associate professor at Queen Mary, University of London, told the Financial Times.
Deaths from Covid-19 reached 981 on Wednesday, the highest daily toll since the coronavirus first soared in the spring. In total, the UK has seen more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, while the death toll is at over 74,000, the second highest in Europe after Italy and the sixth highest in the world.
The government will need to speed up vaccine roll-out if it wants to include the new Covid-19 strain, its scientific advisory committee suggested Dec. 22, warning that “current vaccination coverage is unlikely to significantly change the epidemiology” of the virus.
The UK was the first Western country to approve both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca emergency jabs. Authorities have distributed a million vaccines so far, Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote in a report tweet. More than 940,000 people have had the first shot, the BBC reported.