The British government’s shambolic and criminal re-sponse to the coronavirus pandemic has been confirmed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, echoing what FRFI and public health experts such as Independent SAGE have been saying for 14 months. Cummings has revealed that the British government’s priority from the beginning was ‘focusing on the economy’ which has led to ‘tens of thousands’ of deaths. Questioned by a joint session of the parliamentary Heath and Social Care, and Science and Technology committees on 26 May, Cummings confirmed that Health Secretary Matt Hancock, like Johnson, was also a serial liar and that ‘up until 13 March 2020 … government policy was either one of herd immunity by September [2020] or it’s herd immunity by January [2021] after a second peak’– a policy of deliberately letting people catch the dangerous Covid-19 virus in order to boost immunity.
Before Cummings’ testimony, Johnson had announced that a public inquiry into the disastrous handling of the coronavirus crisis would be held. However, in a forlorn attempt to kick the issue into the long grass, it would not start until 2022, dragging out for years and hence covering up the Tory government’s crimes. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ‘welcomed [the] announcement of the start date’ but asked ‘why can it not start earlier?’ This is Starmer’s ‘constructive engagement’ – no opposition at all to the way in which government policy decisions killed tens of thousands of ordinary people who need not have died.
‘Indian variant’ B.1.617.2
Johnson is also sticking resolutely to his ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ –economic plans to ease restrictions regardless of what the data shows. But this prioritisation of the economy has led to holes in the government strategy which has allowed a new more transmissible virus variant to enter the country, and which is now changing the shape of the pandemic. The government promised to ‘follow the data’, and one of its ‘four tests’, Test 4, was that ‘Our assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new Variants of Concern’. Yet evidence has emerged that the government is suppressing the data on the new variant B.1.617.2, first sequenced in India, the so-called ‘Indian variant’. The Observer revealed that No 10 leaned on Public Heath England (PHE) not to publish data on the spread of the Indian variant in schools, days before removing a mandate on facemasks in schools and taking ‘Step 3’ of the Roadmap on 17 May. The report was then published on 13 May with the data on schools removed.
A PHE report on 22 May comparing vaccine efficacy against the ‘Kent’ (B.1.1.7) and Indian variants concluded that there was reduced effectiveness of the vaccines currently in use in the UK against the Indian variant, by about 20% for the first dose, and 6% for the second dose compared to the Kent variant – evidence of ‘vaccine escape’. This makes the first dose only 33% effective against symptomatic infection and emphasises the need for people to have a second dose. Only 45% of the adult population (24 million people at the time of going to press) and 36% of the entire population have had two doses. This low coverage coupled with vaccine escape and the higher transmissibility of the virus, now dominant in the UK, means millions of people are still susceptible to another wave of coronavirus infections. Already under the current Roadmap restrictions, there are increasing numbers of new outbreaks of Covid-19 in at least 86 out of 343 local authorities in England. There are outbreaks in schools and in care homes including infections where residents have had two doses. The R rate nationally is as high as 1.1 (and 1.2 in the North West), meaning infections are rising exponentially, and the R for the new variant could be even higher. Rather than pause its Roadmap, the government is doubling down on its vaccination-only strategy, continuing its reckless disregard for human life and prioritisation of capitalist profits. Scientists are now predicting a fourth ‘exit wave’ expected to follow the ‘reopening of society’ steps on 17 May and particularly 21 June (Roadmap Step 4).
Although overall prevalence of the disease in England is very low at 12 cases per 100,000 head of population, and even lower in Wales and Scotland, it is three times the rate it was last August when the government launched its ‘eat out to help out’ scheme and helped seed the second wave, beginning in September 2020. This was the point at which the previous variant began to be replaced by the 50% more transmissible ‘Kent variant’, which became dominant in just seven weeks. The Kent variant is now the dominant strain in over 130 countries thanks to the British government prioritising the profits of the airline and travel industry. Now the Kent variant is being replaced by an even fitter ‘double mutant’ Indian variant, one of two first identified in India. On 7 May, PHE classified the Indian variant as a variant of concern, ‘at least as transmissible’ as the Kent variant. Studies in India, where a devastating second wave is killing at least 4,500 people a day, show that the Indian variant is 60% more transmissible than the Kent variant. PHE delayed reporting this information again under political direction from the government until after the local elections on 6 May, and only after it was leaked onto the internet.
The original Indian variant B.1.617, which is now present in 53 countries, entered Britain exclusively via international travel and then mutated into two further subgroups of which B.1.617.2 is the most concerning. The WHO has characterised B.1.617 itself as a variant of concern. Samples of the B1.617.2 Indian variant are already mutating further as there is now widespread community transmission in the UK, indicated by the presence of over 48 clusters all over the UK and a rapid increase of cases linked to the variant in certain regions such as Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen in northwest England. As with the Kent variant in November 2020, from a low base cases are taking off very rapidly. Now the majority of cases in almost all regions are the result of community transmission, and in Bolton, where the case rate by 22 May was 445 per 100,000 (1,119 per 100,000 in 10-14 year olds), vaccination coverage is identical with the UK average, confirming that Hancock was lying when he blamed people in hospital with Covid-19 for ‘refusing the vaccine’. People living in deprived areas in these regions are some of the poorest and most marginalised in British society, at high risk of exposure to Covid-19 and at high risk of complications and death following infection, with lower coverage of vaccination compared to the white population. However, the government refuses to pay people who can’t afford to stay home a measly £500 grant to self-isolate. Yet £37bn has been given to private corporations and friends of the Tory party to run the ineffective test and trace system.
SAGE advice
A report from the University of Warwick for the government’s SAGE SPI-M modelling subgroup predicts that if the Indian variant were to have a 40-50% transmission advantage over B117, that ‘progressing with [Roadmap] Step 3 alone, or Steps 3 and 4 … would lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisation – similar to, or larger than previous peaks’, even with current levels of vaccination of 2.7 million doses a week. A fourth wave would mean thousands more deaths and tens of thousands more cases of Long Covid. This is because no vaccine is 100% effective and because not enough people have been fully vaccinated to achieve population herd immunity, which may need to be as high as 80% of the entire population. SPI-M assume no vaccine escape, a combined vaccine efficacy against severe illness, hospitalisation or death of 80% after the first dose and 90% for all three after the second dose, on top of a 50% reduction in transmission. Unfortunately, the vaccine is not a magic bullet. Another concern raised by the scientific advisers is the increasing proportion of sequenced positive samples now found to be variants of concern. Sequencing or reading the genetic code tells scientists the kind of genetic information carried by the virus and helps track its spread, replication, mutations and hence its family tree and origins, and whether particular variants are associated with particular symptoms or severity of disease.
Open borders for capital
The UK travel restrictions have never been enough to keep in or out new variants. International travel is currently allowed to green, amber and red list countries, with various restrictions applying to each. Countries can move between these lists based on their official data. ‘The Prime Minister’, Cummings has confirmed, ‘never wanted a proper border policy … the travel industry will all be destroyed if we bring in a serious border policy’. Hence, under pressure from the airline industry, which lost $126.4bn in 2020 according to the International Air Transport Association, the British capitalists’ representatives in government have refused to implement a ‘serious border policy’ that would keep out the Indian variant and keep in the Kent variant. Considering that most countries do very little or no genomic sequencing (India sequences fewer than 1% of cases), and that data is subject to manipulation for political and economic reasons, the potential for variant leakage is clear.
Contrary to WHO advice, travellers to the UK only quarantine for 10 days rather than 14 days, and they can leave quarantine after five days if they pay for a private ‘Test to Release’ PCR test. Travellers can mix in the departure lounge and on the plane, and switch destinations. The arrival of the variant first sequenced in India via international travel shows the system doesn’t work. India was kept off the ‘red list’ until 23 April for political reasons as Johnson was planning a trip to negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal. Pakistan had neither the Brazilian P.1 nor the South African B1.351 variants when it was added to the red list on 9 April, whilst India had both and two new variants including the ‘Bengal variant’, the triple mutant B.1.618. In any case the Indian variants were first detected in India in October 2020 and in the UK in February 2021 so adding India to the red list in February 2021 would have made no difference. There should be no red, amber or green ‘lists’ and all travellers should be mandatorily quarantined with financial support and free testing for the full 14 days.
Eliminate the virus now
As clinical epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani explains, we should ‘pivot to elimination … This is the only way to ensure that our vaccines are protecting people, and to keep ahead of virus adaptation. Fix our test, trace, isolate system. Support with isolation. Comprehensive border controls with managed quarantine for 14 days. Robust mitigations in schools, both primaries and secondaries’. For socialists and the working class, there remains no alternative to virus elimination. We continue to demand a Zero Covid maximum suppression strategy and a transparent, urgent public inquiry into the whole shambolic handling of the pandemic, now and not in 2022.
Charles Chinweizu
