Health chiefs rush to speed up vaccine rollout as Indian variant becomes UK’s most dominant strain
HEALTH bosses are dashing to get more Covid jabs in the nation’s arms as it emerged the Indian variant is now the UK’s most dominant strain.
They have responded by speeding up the offer of second doses to the over-50s to get as many fully immunised against the contagious mutation as fast as possible.
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It came as experts said they were confident that Boris Johnson’s June 21 Freedom Day was “looking good” after research revealed two jabs were highly effective against the variant.
According to latest figures, the Indian mutation is causing more than half of reported Covid cases.
Public Health England (PHE) said 53.8 per cent of infections in mid-May had the “S gene” — a tell-tale sign of the variant.
Separate figures from Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium said it was behind 49.6 per cent of cases since May 16, compared to 43.7 per cent attributed to the Kent variant.
PHE data shows the Pfizer jab is 88 per cent effective at stopping people falling ill with the Indian variant, compared with 93 per cent protection against the Kent strain.
The respective figures for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab were 60 per cent against the Indian strain and 66 per cent the Kent.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said cases would rise in the coming weeks but, on the balance of evidence, the vaccines would stop the NHS being overwhelmed.
He added: “If that is the case, then we should be able to ride out this summer.”
‘WE CAN LIVE WITH THE VIRUS’
Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said more time was needed to see how the jabs work in the longer term.
He added: “If the current generation of vaccines are able to stop people going into hospital . . . then the pandemic is over because we can live with the virus. The thing that makes this a pandemic is people going into hospital.”
He said it would be known in a few weeks if the rise in infections linked to the Indian strain was “completely uncoupled from hospitalisations and deaths”.
Government boffins had warned the variant was 50 per cent more transmissible than current Covid strains, threatening plans to lift lockdown. The figure was lowered to 25 per cent last week.
But Professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, warned that the Indian variant “does have a significant advantage in humans”.
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He said: “It would explain what we’ve been seeing in India where people who have been vaccinated are getting infected, as well as people who were infected previously getting re-infected”.
He said vigilance was essential because, with so many young people here unvaccinated, it could “very quickly run out of control”.
More than 38million Brits have had their first shot and 22.9million are fully immunised.