The barbarians are at the gate. I am talking about the coronavirus Indian variant cases that have set up camp in Britain, growing their numbers there rapidly, and getting ready to cross the sea to land in Ireland — in fact, some of them are already among us.
here are now 3,424 Indian variant cases (B.1.617.2) detected in various locations in the UK, but in reality it’s probably closer to 11,000 given that only samples are analysed.
The numbers are roughly doubling each week — and nearly tripled last week, from 520 to 1,313 cases. Just look at the chart above to appreciate how fast this variant grows compared to the Brazilian (P.1) and South African (B.1.351) variants.
In Ireland, 72 cases have been detected so far — and that number reflects the situation two weeks ago due to the time it takes to identify them, so it’s likely that more will be here by the time you read this.
The main problem with some variants is that they spread much faster than the original virus. This is why variants have led to ongoing spikes in countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Cambodia which had, until now, an impeccable record in containing the pandemic.
Higher transmissibility is a game changer. Commenting recently on the UK situation in the British Medical Journal, public health experts wrote that the Indian variant “has fundamentally changed the risk we face”.
It is assessed to be 40-50pc more transmissible than the British variant (B.1.1.7), itself much more transmissible than the original virus, and which spread like wildfire here, causing our massive spike just after Christmas.
This means that the Indian variant “could cause an increase in hospitalisations worse than January 2021” if restrictions are relaxed, the authors conclude.
Let’s remember that these assessments are for the UK, which has a vaccination rate double that of ours. Ireland has 11pc of its people fully vaccinated, while 29pc have received at least one dose; in the UK, the corresponding numbers are 31pc and 56pc.
Some will say there is no need to do anything because the vaccines are coming. But that’s plain wrong.
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The Indian variant could wreak havoc among the non-vaccinated. Even if those people are younger, as many get infected, too many will end up in hospital.
Therefore we need to keep the variants out — and that means reinforcing our mandatory hotel quarantine (MHQ) system.
We now have good evidence that our MHQ has been effective in suppressing other variants. Indeed, just before MHQ was introduced in late March 2021, there were nearly 30 Brazilian and South African variants in Ireland. But only a few weeks later, with MHQ established, those variants fell to zero by late April.
Dr Ina Kelly, the chair of the Irish Medical Organisation’s public health committee, said that public health consultants “breathed a huge sigh of relief” when MHQ was set up and that “it’s making a huge difference to protecting the population”. It allows public health teams to trace variants without having to deal with a constant inflow of new ones due to travel.
But the Government seems to be going in the wrong direction, seduced once again by the travel industry. Last week we learned of plans to establish a “travel bubble” between Ireland and the UK. This would amount to leaving the gates wide open to variants.
Lobby groups already undermined the national effort last summer, when international travel reseeded the country while we were effectively at Zero Covid. Then at Christmas, indoor restaurant dining, shopping and general relaxation of measures were followed by a massive surge in January.
Of course, some say that we might as well have a UK-Ireland travel bubble because once non-essential travel resumes between Northern Ireland and the UK mainland, our porous Border will bring in the variants.
But the Border can be controlled. Checkpoints, 5km radius limits from homes in strategic areas and cross-Border bubbles can all be established. Will it be perfectly hermetic? No, but it will be effective enough.
The effectiveness of controls has a lot to do with the type of message sent by the Government, whatever the actual rules are. If the Government makes it clear that the Border cannot be crossed, that will reduce non-essential travel significantly.
The ball is in our court. Let’s keep our defences strong to allow the vaccines to be rolled out and protect our health. There is no point undermining (again) the sacrifices we’ve made.
Julien Mercille is an associate professor at UCD’s School of Geography, Planning & Environmental Policy
