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The UK Health Minister warned that coronavirus vaccines may be less effective against new variants of the disease, such as those in South Africa and Brazil, and that stricter border controls are warranted.
“We don’t know the extent of that,” Matt Hancock said Sunday in an interview on Sky News, commenting on the magnitude of the vaccines’ potential diminished efficacy. “In the meantime, we need to have a precautionary principle that says, let’s not bring these new variants back to the UK”
Hancock’s warning came when the UK reported that it had vaccinated more than 5 million people, including three-quarters of people over 80. concerned about new variants developing elsewhere.
“The new variant that I am really concerned about is the variant out there but has not been noticed yet,” he said, adding that the UK is offering its genome sequencing capability to other countries to help them identify new strains. There are 77 known cases of the South African variant in Britain and at least 9 cases of the Brazilian variant, Hancock said on BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
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The UK has already banned flights from South Africa and neighboring countries, plus all of South America, in an attempt to stop the spread of the new variants. Hancock said the government has not ruled out the possibility of even tougher international travel measures being introduced in the coming days.
Britain is struggling with the highest death toll in Europe as a result of the disease and is fighting to recover from its deepest recession in more than 300 years. The latest data released Sunday reported a further 610 deaths, bringing the UK’s total to 97,939. The government is also on the alert for signs that a local variant of the virus, which is as much as 70% more transmissible, may be more deadly than the original strain.
Vaccine delivery – not National Health Service distribution – is the rate-limiting factor in the UK’s vaccination efforts, Hancock said. About 6.35 million people have now received their first dose, the latest figures showed, with Britain well ahead of other European countries.
Read more: More than 63 million shots given: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker
Hancock was unable to confirm that schools would be open again by Easter, saying the government at the time should look at data surrounding the pandemic. While the government also wants to lift social restrictions as soon as possible, Hancock added that it is too early to provide more details on possible easing.
“There are early indications that the lockdown is starting to close things, but we are nowhere near low enough,” Hancock said on Sky. “You can see the pressure on the NHS, you can see it every day.”
(Updates with the latest coronavirus data from the sixth paragraph.)