It is “possible” that India’s redlisting earlier could have prevented the widely anticipated delay in easing the coronavirus lockdown in England which is expected to be announced later, a minister said.
Boris Johnson is is about to announce a four week delay at the fourth stage of the country’s roadmap COVID-19[female[feminine restrictions due to the spread of the Delta variant first identified in India.
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The variant now represents more than 90% of cases in England and is estimated by Public Health England (PHE) be 64% more transmissible than the Alpha variant (Kent) inside.
The government has come under fire for putting India on the travel red list on April 23 – two weeks after neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh.
When asked if faster action could have prevented the current situation, Health Minister Edward Argar told Sky News that such a suggestion was a “hypothetical” and “we don’t know it’s the short answer “.
“I don’t think that would have necessarily stopped the arrival of the variant,” he insisted.
But pressed again, Mr. Argar admitted, “It’s a guess. It’s possible, but there’s no way to know.”
The minister defended the government’s approach, saying ministers had taken “swift and decisive action”.
“We have some of the strictest border regimes in the world when it comes to fighting the coronavirus and I think we acted quickly and decisively when this was put on the list of variants of concern,” he said. .
Lucy Powell of the Labor Party said “it was definitely too late to put India on the red list”.
“It certainly has, I think, everything to do with the fact that the prime minister was supposed to go there himself,” said the shadow housing secretary, referring to a planned trip to India by …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-14 06:58:00
