EDINBURGH, Scotland – It was only a few weeks ago that people in Britain had planned a relatively normal Christmas time with their families thanks to relaxed pandemic rules. With the mutant coronavirus variant fueling a near-vertical spike in new daily cases, large swaths of the country are kicking off the new year by being beaten back into the toughest lockdowns.
The speed of the turnaround is astounding and terrifying. By the end of November, after a nationwide lockdown in England, the number of British cases had fallen to about 13,000 a day. Now the country has registered more than 50,000 cases six days in a row.
In comparison, England registered 476.9 cases per 100,000 people in the past week – a rate nearly five times higher than California, the most affected state in the United States, which has 98.8, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . cases per 100,000. The message to the world seems clear: the new variety is spreading faster, and without strict preventive measures it will happen to you too.
The surge in Britain comes despite the planned Christmas relaxation being scrapped, schools closing for Christmas and the largest city, London, being at the top of the lockdown for two weeks. Experts have been warning for weeks that the new variant is spreading so quickly that rules that may have been worked on last year are no longer sufficient. Political leaders are now struggling to figure out how to strike it back or they will face catastrophe.
Scotland has led the way. The decentralized nationalist government had already closed the border with England after Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed that the new variant was running wild in the south. On Monday, the Prime Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, announced a lockdown just as strict as the one in the spring. Her message – stay home and don’t keep your kids in school or we’ll end up just as stupid as England.
Sturgeon has estimated that Scotland is now about four weeks behind England’s rise, but the new rules – which force Scots by law to leave their homes, but for a few essential purposes – are designed to keep the country from getting out of control runs like their neighbors. Scotland has 188.3 cases per 100,000, less than half the number of cases in England in the past seven days, according to government figures.
Meanwhile, Johnson has been under great pressure to prevent cases in England from seeing peak after peak after peak. That may end on Monday, as the prime minister is due to address the nation and has warned that measures will no doubt tighten. However, it is not clear what the new promotion will be.
When asked why he took so long to do something, Johnson said, “What we’ve been waiting for is the impact of the level four measures on the virus and it’s still a bit unclear at this point. But if you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will have to take tougher measures and we will announce them in due time. “
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has admitted that the rules that have worked since the spring blockade are “no longer strong enough.”
Even more worrying, however, is Hancock’s belief that the new British variant may not even pose the greatest threat to an already overrun country. He said on Monday that he is “incredibly concerned” about a South African variant considered even more transmissible than the British one – and two cases of it have been confirmed in Britain.
Hancock told the BBC on Monday: “This is a very, very big problem … even bigger than the new variant in the UK.”
One reason for such concern may be that British experts have openly questioned whether current vaccines will work on the South African mutant. John Bell, Oxford University professor and government vaccine advisor, has said there is a “big question mark” as to whether the existing vaccines will work on the South African variety.
Clearly Britain is in a bad situation – what is much less clear is whether this is as bad as it will get, whether new measures will be enough to keep the virus mutant in check, and what happens if an even worse one.