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The new contagious strain of Covid-19, which first appeared in the south-east of England, was already spreading rapidly, even during the nation’s second blockade in November, according to a report released by Imperial scientists on Thursday. College of London.
A report by scientists at Imperial College London published on 31 December estimated that the new coronavirus strain tripled its number of infections in England during the November blockade, while the number of new cases caused by the previous version of decreased by one third.
The new strain had a higher reproduction rate (R) – which determines how contagious a disease is based on the number of people infected by each infected person – of 0.7 compared to 0.4 for the previous strain, even with ” high levels of social distancing ”during the pre-Christmas blockade.
An R rate must be less than 1 for the number of new cases to begin to decrease. The most recent estimate of the R rate for the UK as a whole by the British government, published on 23 December, was between 1.1 and 1.3.
The emergence of the new Covid-19 strain led more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the United Kingdom at the end of December, many of which were subsequently lifted. France reported the first case of the new variant on its soil on 25 December.
“There is a huge difference in how easily the virus spreads,” Axel Gandy, a statistician at Imperial College London and co-author of the report, told the BBC. “This is the worst change in the virus since the epidemic began,” he said.
Imperial College research also found that the new strain initially spread the fastest to people under the age of 20, but then began to spread to other age groups.
“Early data were collected during the November blockade, where schools were open and adult activities were more limited,” Gandy said. “We now see that the new virus has increased infectivity in all age groups,” he continued.
The government on Wednesday re-imposed measures to block areas covering 78% of the UK population, while regional authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also brought closure measures.
Intensive care units in London and the surrounding south-eastern region exceeded capacity on 29 December, with occupancy reaching 114 and 113 per cent, respectively, according to NHS data released to the Health Services Journal. In response, the government activated one of its Nightingale hospitals – designed to treat only Covid-19 patients, eliminating pressure from overcrowded hospitals – on 31 December.
The Imperial College report suggested that keeping schools closed after the Christmas holidays would help limit the spread of the virus: “A special concern is whether it will be possible to maintain control over transmission while allowing schools to reopen in January.” The government has extended the Christmas holidays until January 11, when high schools in England are scheduled to resume class attendance. Students will return to English-language primary schools on January 4, except for the most severe virus hotspots, including London.
It is “inevitable” that schools will have to remain closed to stop the new Covid-19 variant that is out of control, Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, told the Financial Times.
The number of deaths caused by Covid-19 reached 981 on Wednesday, the highest daily number since the coronavirus first rose in the spring. Overall, the UK has more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, while its death toll is over 74,000, the second largest in Europe after Italy and the sixth largest in the world.
The government will have to speed up the launch of vaccines if it wants to contain the new Covid-19 strain, its scientific advisory committee suggested on December 22, warning that “current vaccination rates are unlikely to significantly change the epidemiology” of the virus.
The United Kingdom was the first Western country to approve both Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs for emergency use. Authorities have so far distributed one million vaccines, Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote in a letter tweet. More than 940,000 people had their first jab, the BBC reported.