This week, Public Health England recorded 1,313 cases of the Indian variant in the UK – up from the 520 last week. Responding to the figures, Boris Johnson said he was “anxious” about the variant and “ruling nothing out” to tackle it.
But the Indian health ministry reported the new variant in late March, a month before the UK introduced a travel ban to the country – and questions are being asked about why the PM took so long to address the issue.
Reaction has set out the timeline of the Indian variant and the early warning signs.
On 16 March, Boris Johnson announced his intention to visit India the following month as part of a post-Brexit “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific. During a statement on the Integrated Review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, the PM said: “I am delighted to announce that I will visit India next month to strengthen our friendship with the world’s biggest democracy.” The PM’s previous plans to visit India in January were cancelled following a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK.
On 24 March, the Indian health ministry reported that 15%-20% of coronavirus genomes sequenced in the western state of Maharashtra – an early hotspot of the country’s second wave – carried two unusual mutations: E484Q and L425R – the so-called “double mutant” Indian variant.
On 30 March, MPs in the UK questioned why Pakistan was being singled out for a travel ban when countries including India had higher case rates. In a letter to Dominic Raab, Labour MP Naz Shah pointed out that Pakistan had 13 per 100,000 cases while India had 24 per 100,000. He said: “As of today the South African variant isn’t a concern in Pakistan whereas this isn’t the case for example in France and other countries. This begs the question why hasn’t the government extended the red list to France, Germany and India.” He added: “The government isn’t serious about protecting the British public as it’s applying decisions led by politics, not data.”
On 6 April, India recorded its highest number of infections in a single day since the pandemic began – prompting concern about Johnson’s official trip. Downing Street said the trip would go ahead as planned but the international situation on Covid would be “kept under review”.
A briefing document drawn up by officials at Public Health England shows that between 25 March and 7 April, 3,345 arrivals from India were registered in UK border travel data. Of those 161 – or 4.8% – tested positive for Covid-19 after a PCR test.
On 14 April, a government spokesperson told Politico that plans for the PM’s trip to India had been scaled back so that the bulk of engagements would take place over just one day.
On 16 April, PHE announced the first reported cases of the “double mutation” India variant in the UK. A total of 77 cases of the variant, known as B.1.617, were recorded in the UK up to 14 April. Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “The Conservatives are putting the progress of the vaccine rollout at risk with their reckless refusal to secure our borders against Covid.”
Paul Hunter, Professor of Health Protection at the University of East Anglia and an expert adviser to the World Health Organisation, told LBC that the Government had to ban travel from India as soon as possible.
On 16 April, No 10 said Boris Johnson’s trip to Delhi would still go ahead on 26 April despite the Indian coronavirus variant and soaring cases in the country. The Government continued to resist calls to place India on its red list of countries from which direct travel is banned.
On 18 April, Labour called again on the PM to cancel the visit. Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed told Ridge on Sunday on Sky News that Johnson shouldn’t be planning to attend the trade visit and said: “I can’t see why the prime minister can’t conduct his business with the Indian government by Zoom, so many of us do that these days.” Also speaking to the programme, Environment secretary George Eustice said the visit was “appropriate” and should go ahead.
On 19 April, Yvette Cooper challenged Matt Hancock over the delay in placing India on the red list in the Commons. She said: “The India variant has been under investigation for three weeks, and other neighbouring countries with lower and slower covid rates were put on the red list 10 days ago. This week, Hong Kong identified 47 covid cases on a single Delhi flight. Before Friday, we still had 16 direct flights from India and many more indirect ones. Can he explain, contrary to his previous answer, why India was not put on a red list 10 days ago, when other countries were?”
Hancock replied: “We keep all these decisions for each country under constant review. The challenge of the genomic data is that some countries have excellent coverage of genomic sequencing and others do not,” adding, “We take the decisions very rapidly when we need to.”
On 19 April, Downing Street confirmed that the PM’s trip to India would not go ahead the following week. Announcing the decision, the British and Indian governments said in a joint statement: “In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week. The PM said it was “only sensible” to scrap the trip “given what’s happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there”.
Asked why India had not yet been added to the UK’s “red list” of travel ban countries given its COVID situation, Johnson said: “The red list is very much a matter for the independent UK Health Security Agency – they will have to take that decision.” It was announced that India would be added to the red list later that day.
On 23 April, the UK’s “red list” ban on India came into force. On 24 April, The Times reported that at least eight private jets were flown to Britain from India in 24 hours as the super-rich paid tens of thousands of pounds to beat the new travel ban. Airlines asked for eight extra flights to arrive at Heathrow before the deadline, but it is understood that the airport declined so that existing pressures at the border were not exacerbated.
On 7 May, the Indian variant was escalated to a “variant of concern” by Public Health England (PHE).
