LONDON (Reuters) – The British government must incorporate stricter coronavirus blocking rules to prevent a new wave of deaths from a new strain of the disease, an epidemiologist and government adviser warned on Tuesday.
Britain reported 41,385 new cases of COVID on Monday, the highest number since tests became widely available in mid-2020, and English hospitals say they have more COVID patients than during the first wave of the pandemic in April.
“We are entering a very dangerous new phase of the pandemic and will need decisive national action to prevent a catastrophe in January and February,” said Andrew Hayward, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London.
More than 71,000 people in Britain have died in the 28 days following the positive test for the disease.
Hayward, who belongs to a British government advisory body on respiratory disease, said the new strain of COVID that infected people more easily meant that existing closure measures in England would not be enough to curb the spread of the disease.
On 26 December, the British government extended the stricter level of COVID restrictions, according to which non-essential retailers are closed and most people cannot meet in person, to cover almost half of the English population.
Hayward told the BBC that these curbs needed to be further expanded.
“We’re really looking at a situation where we’re moving to a practical closure,” he said.
Schools in England will have to reopen for many pupils on 4 January. Hayward said that from a purely epidemiological point of view, it would make sense to keep them closed for longer, but the difficulties that poorer students faced in online learning meant slowdowns in other areas of life. public. may be preferable.
Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland established their own school policies and measures to combat COVID.
Report by David Milliken, edited by Paul Sandle