Latest updates: UK officials face urgent calls for tougher border measures as the search continues for one of six people infected with Brazilian variant
- Alarm over delays in border measures as Brazil Covid variant hits UK
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Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London, told BBC Breakfast this morning that the discovery of the P1 Brazil variant in England highlighted the “failures in quarantine policy”. She said:
Sage has advised that, unless we had a comprehensive, managed quarantine policy at our borders, something like this would happen. But unfortunately it’s something that we’ve been quite complacent about; now we’re just seeing the consequences of that.
Measures to reduce importations are most important when domestic prevalence (either overall or of particular variants of concern) is low and when importation could result in R>1. No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully preventing the importation of cases or new variants (moderate confidence, moderate evidence) …
Reactive, geographically targeted travel bans cannot be relied upon to stop importation of new variants, due to the lag between the emergence and identification of variants of concern, as well as the potential for indirect travel via a third country (moderate confidence, moderate evidence).
On its website South Gloucestershire council has given details of where surge testing is taking place in response to the discovery of two cases of the P1 Brazil variant in the borough. Here are the postcode sectors where people are being asked to get tested:
BS32 0
BS32 8
BS32 9
BS34 5
BS34 6
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