Yahoo Finance South African variant: Local restrictions could be needed in London to stop spread, expert warns
Local restrictions may have to be imposed in London if surge testing fails to stop the spread of the Covid-19 South African variant, a leading disease expert suggested today.
Professor John Edmunds, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stressed it was not yet clear whether the testing of hundreds of thousands of people in the capital will stop a cluster of dozens of cases growing.
“What we are looking at in south London is an example of what we’ll see now in the coming months, as we try our best to keep that variant out or at as low a level as we possibly can, because if these mass testing events don’t work that well, and we don’t know yet, I mean we’ll have to evaluate this one very carefully, then it’s possible that we’ll have to impose some sort of local restrictions back in place and nobody wants to do it,” he told ITV’s Peston show.
Mr Edmunds, who sits on the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, added: “So that’s why it’s really important that we test this testing system, you know mass testing, as robustly as we can, and hopefully that is going to be sufficient to be able to keep cases low.”
He stressed that the “vast majority” of the population would have to be vaccinated to “keep a lid on this epidemic more or less permanently” which would take a “long time”.
He also believes that vaccine passports will be introduced for domestic use in the country.
“It could help in getting parts of the economy opened up again that may otherwise have to wait. I’m thinking of the arts and sporting events, and so on,” he said.
“You know, taking a test before entering those I think is going to happen, whether it has a significant [effect] or not, but I suspect that that’s going to happen over the next few months for sure.”
He also thinks people will continue to wear masks for some time even if they are not mandatory.
Surge testing is being stepped up in London to try to stop the spread of the SA variant.
Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark have set up additional testing facilities to process thousands of residents, while a case of the variant was also detected in Barnet.
Health chiefs believe the SA mutation may be more resistant to vaccines but the jabs, including the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna inoculations which have been approved in the UK, are thought to still offer significant protection against severe disease.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the case in Barnet was unrelated to other clusters, but it had been isolated and the person’s contacts traced.
More than half a million adults living in south London boroughs have been offered tests, including 264,000 in Lambeth, 265,000 in Wandsworth, and 14,800 in the Rotherhithe ward of Southwark.
Some 44 confirmed cases of the variant have been found in Lambeth and Wandsworth, with a further 30 probable cases, say health chiefs.
Thousands of people queued up at pop-up testing facilities offering PCR tests on Tuesday and Wednesday, and marshals said they had warned that waiting times could be up to two hours.
People aged 11 and over who live, work or travel through those areas are being urged to take a PCR test, on top of twice-weekly rapid testing.
Facilities set up in Wandsworth include centres at Wandsworth Town Hall, Tooting Leisure Centre and Mount Clare House, Roehampton, with more opening in Putney on Thursday.
Pop-up centres in Lambeth included Clapham Common, Brockwell Park, and Lambeth Town Hall.
Home-testing kits are available for collection by residents at multiple sites.
Additional testing has been set up by NHS Test and Trace in the SE16 area of Southwark, after a case was linked to the cluster in Wandsworth and Lambeth.
Health chiefs said the person had been identified and was self-isolating, and their contacts had been traced.
Barnet Council said although the single case of the variant had been traced, residents in Finchley N3 were “strongly encouraged” to take a PCR test, even if asymptomatic.
“This week, a team working on behalf of Barnet Council will be going door to door to affected households in N3 to offer PCR home testing kits,” it said in a statement.
“Other people in affected areas will receive a leaflet asking them to get tested at a mobile testing unit (MTU) located in Finchley Central Underground Station car park.
“Regular shoppers in Ballards Lane are also encouraged to get tested at the MTU.”
Downing Street has insisted the outbreak is being taken “very seriously” and “strong measures” have been put in place to prevent it spreading.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock and local public health chiefs are urging people to get tested, vaccinated when offered the jab, and to keep following the existing lockdown restrictions.
A Health Department spokesperson said: “Additional surge testing and sequencing has been successfully rolled out in a number of targeted locations to help us suppress, control and better understand Covid-19 variants in circulation.
“Surge testing has been well received by the public in those areas, with thousands of tests completed and thousands of genomes sequenced.”
The SA variant outbreak may initially have been triggered by a person who travelled from an African country, not South Africa, to the UK in February.
The individual is believed to have self-isolated at home after showing symptoms but the disease may have spread to other household members, and then the care home, and a primary school.
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