Going off on a tangent here but Lucky at One Mile at a Time reported the case of a Vistara A321 (so not exactly the largest plane in the world) landing in HKG with 25 people testing positive on the first round of PCRs post arrival and then another 22 yielding a positive result on day 12. I don't know whether they had chances to be exposed after landing (maybe hotel air being recycled) but it's quite a feat to have 47 positives on a single flight... and allegedly all those travellers had a test prior to leaving Delhi.

It all adds to the inevitability of action being taken with regards to arrivals from India (which, again, I'm not disputing... just asking for the rulebook here).

Those getting tested in Italy are self selected, based on symptoms or a positive rapid test, so the percentage positive will be much higher. People arriving from the UK from India are those that have a negative test result 3 days before and with no self selection - a more reasonable comparison is the ONS survey which showed 0.2% positivity (one in 480 people).

The main reason to be concerned is the growth of Indian variant in the UK is looking very similar to the early days of the Kent variant (which caused a huge amount of death in UK, and now in Europe). The good news is I haven't seen any news of vaccine escape.

Note: Logarithmic scale, so the numbers are currently very small.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...307081f9d.jpeg

Source:

I agree with 13901 that a clear set of rules should be published. However exception should be made in emergencies for special cases. India is one of them, reports from the grounds there are chilling, I still have in my memory the images of those corpses in piles burning on the side road.

Yes, this is the core issue: somehow people who have tested negative in India before departure are arriving positive in the UK, and by a much higher percentage (over ten times) than anywhere else. So either the India tests are inaccurate, or the results are forged, or the results documentation isn't correctly linked to the test. Plus genuinely, if there is a very high level of infection in a community then given the delays in getting test results to show a positive then there will be cases that are only detected later on . And I suspect it's a combination of all of those factors. This is vastly more than any other country and was spotted via day2 testing.

If you go for a community PCR test the assumption is that something is wrong to trigger going for the PCR. So in Italy you are either showing symptoms or you have a contact who is positive (and a few other circumstances). In India they are essentially in the same position as the UK was in around June - relatively little community testing. In flying you are not supposed to have symptoms at all and the pre departure test will help identify any unknown contacts who could have given you the virus. Italy now has a strong ethos around testing for COVID-19, India does not. So the comparison between India and Italy is chalk and cheese. The number of people from Italy arriving in the UK with positive results is below 0.1% (it's just 3 dots on the internal report, meaning effectively zero).

Then you move on to something not so far mentioned. There are several categories of variants: Variants of Concern (VOC) such as B.1.1.7 - the Kent Variant - is at the top. We also have Variants Under Investigation (VUI) and Variants of Interest (VOI). The variant B.1..617 linked to India is a VUI since we don't actually know a lot about it. So in terms of Red listing even a 5% hit rate, while clearly undesireable, if people self isolate and do their tests then it isn't going to do much damage to the UK population. It's a nuisance. And within that 5% most cases don't have the VUI anyway. So it's not necessarily an immediate red flag. But if it's a VOC then that changes everything since VOCs have some characteristic(s) which make them undesireable. So for B.1.1.7 it spreads more rapidly and the variants has evolved to be backloaded, so more tricky to spot without mass screening. At one stage it was reckoned to be more deadly but it's actually less deadly than other variants. Clearly a fast spreading variant kills more people on an absolute basis even if not on a relative basis. Happily B.1.1.7 doesn't survive a vaccination programme, in fact it seems more vulnerable, particularly to Pfizer. India appears to transmit easily, but it may be that B.1.1.7 continues its evolutionary advantage and squeezes out the competition, no-one knows. But until we know more about B.1.617 we are a bit unclear. Hence the red listing is precautionary. There are, incidently, a lot of variants, we are already living with the concept, not least thanks to the vast spread of B.1.1.7.

However it is an example of something discovered via day2 testing and I suspect that will reassure many in public health that the underlying process can be made to work.

I understand the desire for a clear set of rules, but I don’t think it’s sensible to start fettering Ministers’ discretion in this way given the repeated way in which developments in this pandemic have both required fast action and have taken unforeseen paths.

And if such rules didn’t have the practical effect of fettering discretion, or if the exceptions were so broad as to render the rules meaningless, then it just leads to more arguments down the line.

I’d rather Ministers have the ability to act in the way they consider necessary to protect public health (justifying that to Parliament and defending JRs if necessary), than being unsure about whether they have grounds (legal and political) to act according to the terms of whatever framework was published, wasting time on legal opinions and fudging the issue.

You have much more faith in ministers doing the right thing at the right time and for the rights reasons than I do! At the very least, data such as the day 2 testing should be published so that we can see the logic or lack of for these decisions.

I agree (and btw thanks to c-w-s and 8420PR for the insight). Whichever criteria are chosen to decide a RAG situation, they should work both in case of an unexpected turn for the worse or a more, shall we say, 'regular' degrading of the situation. I know it's not easy but... that's why they're paid the big bucks!

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BJ holding press conference tonight at 5pm, any ideas why, just a regular update ?

knowing his priorities? prob a statement on the new "super league" proposal ;)

BBC are reporting Prof Mark Walport, the UK's former chief scientific adviser saying the action on India is too late. Looking at the graphs above, particularly the one posted by 8420PR, why did this not happen 2 weeks ago? Was it political because of BJ's ultimately cancelled trip there?

And just in case you wondered, fake COVID test certificates are available in India from real tests labs for Rs2,000 ($27) or you can save Rs200 by getting them on the 'dark web'.

After a lengthy period in which it appeared that the government had learnt the lessons of last year, I'm afraid it now seems that they have reverted to their complacent, "too little, too late" attitude to restrictions.

If the Indian variant turns out to be a variant of concern then this threatens the planned date for resumption of international travel.

Has the UAE been given a nod and a wink regarding the Green list?

Emirates are upgrading 4 LHR and 1 MAN rotations to the A380, and starting BHX/GLA again. All on 17th May...

Scotland restrictions being eased from 26 april
 

Hi,

The fm is currently speaking and restrictions are being eased from 26 april including travel between Scotland and the rest of the uk

Will post a link at lunchtime

Full details here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56812118
Regards
tbs

India is only on the red list because its cases are out of control, a bit like what we had in the winter. That's all. All this talk about Brazil variant of concern, but it has never taken off in the UK, as JVT said the Kent variant is stronger in the UK and the dominant one so the other one can't spread that easily.


It shows you that you can run but you can't hide forever, unless you have vaccinated a majority of your population/immunity from natural disease (e.g. the UK).