The Government has come under fire for adding countries onto a red list when it is too late after India became the latest nation to face a UK travel ban amid a surge in cases of a variant that first emerged there.
Ministers are facing questions over why arrivals were not banned immediately from India, which is now dealing with a second wave of the virus, despite the Covid variant being under investigation for almost three weeks.
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the Government s failure to introduce stronger restrictions at the border had left the country exposed to mutations of the virus .
India could be added to the UK s travel red list as early as today after Boris Johnson cancelled his visit amid surging coronavirus cases and alarm about a new variant.
A joint statement from the British and Indian government said the trip - already scaled back - will not go ahead in light of the current situation .
The news came amid rising expectation that the UK s restrictions on journeys to the country will be ramped up, with experts warning about the potential threat posed by a mutant strain.
During a visit to Gloucestershire, Mr Johnson told reporters: The red list is very much a matter for the independent UK Health Security Agency – they will have to take that decision.
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The Indian coronavirus variant could pose a threat to Boris Johnson s roadmap out of lockdown, an expert warned today.
It is feared the B.1.617 strain spreads more easily than older versions of the virus and scientists say it has mutations which may help it evade vaccines.
Professor Danny Altmann, an Imperial College London immunologist, said there were vaccinated vulnerable Britons who could still be caught out by variants like this .
Health officials warned yesterday that cases of people in the UK contracting the South African and Kent strains after being vaccinated have already been recorded.
Public Health England says officially the Indian variant has been spotted 77 times in Scotland and England since March. But analysis of publicly available information on new variant numbers say cases have risen to 160, suggesting it s spreading rapidly in the community.
SCOTLAND’S Covid vaccination programme reached a landmark yesterday, with half the population now having received the first dose of the vaccine. A total of 2,733,387 people have received their first jag to protect against the virus, according to the latest Scottish Government figures, with the country’s population around 5.4 million. It marks an increase of 11,303 from the previous day while 715,714 people have had both doses, with this figure up by 26,953 from Friday’s total. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who herself received a first dose of AstraZeneca on Thursday, paid tribute to those involved in the vaccination programme. She said: “This shows the phenomenal progress being made by Scotland’s vaccination programme.