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The "India" variant now circulating in the UK is likely to be more transmissible than the "Kent" variant (VOC-20DEC-01), which in turn was 50% more transmissible than the original.
And our government is still going ahead with relaxing the UK restrictions on Monday. Once again, they're going to be found to have reacted too slowly. I fear this will lead to thousands more unnecessary deaths in the UK later this year.
I started to be concerned a couple of weeks when I noticed that positive test numbers in the UK had essentially stopped falling (although the number of tests hadn't increased significantly) The 7-day average by date reported has been rising since 3rd May.
The relaxing of restrictions on Monday can only lead to more cases. It seems insane to relax the rules now, when the vaccination programme is going so well. (Over 80% of people aged 40+ have had at least their first dose so far. And even 68% of people over 18.) Another month or two and the vaccination rates should lead to suppression even with greater transmissibility and relaxation of rules. But just now it's likely (IMO) to lead to another big wave of cases in the autumn. And that's also what the government has been told by modellers. But they're going ahead with the relaxation on Monday anyway.
Getting it wrong the first time (Feb/March 2020) was understandable. Getting it wrong the second time (Sep/Oct 2020) was not. How can they be walking in to getting it wrong a third time now?
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