According to BBC News the second dose of Covid vaccinations may be brought forward to try to control the India variant B.1.617.2 which is now known as the fifth variant of concern for the UK. The Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said “the UK would flex its jabs programme to where it was best utilised. This could also include vaccinating younger people in multi-generational households.” On Thursday Public Health England reported 1313 UK cases of the India variant which was double the cases reported up to 5th May 21.
Bolton in Greater Manchester is one town which has seen a rapid spike in infections since mid-April. Infact rates doubled in the last week of April and then doubled again in the first week of May. So just how concerned should we be? Lynn Donkin, the Assistant Director of Public Health Bolton said “no one knows for sure how this spike of infections started. We’ve got higher rates in the younger age groups, but the increases are now happening across all the under 60’s. That suggests that we’ve got transmission within households and that’s now part of the situation here.” Attention has been focused on just a handful of neighbourhoods to the south of town centre – Rumworth, Deane and Great Lever. About half of new cases detected in Bolton over the last week have come from those three areas alone. Other areas affected by the India variant include Tyneside and Nottingham.
The DHSC said that there was “no firm evidence yet to show that the India variant has any greater impact on severity of disease or evades the vaccine. However, Ministers cannot rule out reimposing economic and social restrictions at a local or regional level if evidence suggests they are necessary to contain or suppress a variant which escapes the vaccine.”