[Music]
308 days
308 days since the streets first emptied
since the first
lockdown descended only the gloomiest
might have thought that 308 days on we
would still be in the same situation
covid still punctuating our lives yet
never quite being able to find a full
stop
and thanks to news of variants foreign
and domestic that full stop
seemed fuzzier and less defined at the
press conference today
in addition to spreading more quickly it
also now
appears that there is some evidence
that the new variant the variant that
was first identified in
london and the south east may be
associated with a higher degree
of mortality nerve tag minutes published
today confirm the potential danger
concluding the data suggests
there is a realistic possibility that
infection with voc b117
the new uk variant is associated with an
increased risk of death
the science remains uncertain though
with some scientists expressing
significant skepticism about the data
available
and the vaccines do still work on this
variant nonetheless it may raise new
questions over the decision
not to lock down nationally in mid to
late december when the variant's greater
transmissibility became known
but this may not be the last domestic
variant we see
newsnite understands that public health
england and nerve tag have been
investigating
several new mutations across the country
one is based in liverpool where i've
been told there have been some 48 cases
of a new mutation
which contained the e48 4k mutation
common to the brazil and south african
variants and which seemed to make
vaccines less effective
and crucially it's happened here not
been imported
public health england tells us we are
currently investigating a cluster of
cases in liverpool of covet 19.
all cases are linked and further genome
testing and public health investigations
are underway there's no reason to
believe that these new clusters pose any
serious threat right now
but it is indicative to the cat and
mouse game we now face
yeah i would say 2021 is the year of the
variant in vaccines
especially the mrna vaccine
manufacturers have said within weeks
they can change their vaccines
so then it becomes a race of how quickly
can we redesign the vaccines
roll them out and get them into people's
arms faster then let's say a new variant
could spread
and so i don't see any way around in the
coming year to
having travel restrictions in place
because that's one of the few ways to
protect against variants coming in
once we deal with a domestic issue of
getting the numbers low the next year or
two to have travel restrictions
well there's no easy way out of this
crisis if i'm completely honest
i mean this is a global problem so even
if we suppress it here effectively and
vaccinate everyone
it could be circulating somewhere else
in the world and all it takes is for
someone to get on a plane ride and come
here and if we have everything open in
it for it to spread
permanent travel restrictions will not
sit comfortably with the tory benches
and nor will the prospect of a much
lengthier way for lifting restrictions
than they feared
being realistic it seems to me unlikely
that we'll be looking at relaxing
restrictions in any kind of serious
sense before
the end of march um and then from that
point it's going to then have to be very
very gradual
vaccination will start to play a role
but it's going to have to be a gradual
easing out of those restrictions
otherwise
you know if we pull the plug as it were
we'll get a resurgence and we'll have to
be reintroducing measures again
that extends even to the most basic
lifting that
of schools i'm told that a preliminary
estimate discussed in government
suggests that if schools return
after february half term even if other
restrictions remain in place hospital
numbers
would remain at very high levels more
comprehensive work modelling the
question of schools is to be undertaken
in the next week or so
but it is certain that hospital numbers
are so high that there is very little
room for maneuver
i think listening to this evening the
penny has now
dropped with the government they realize
that there's no quick fix to this
there's no one-stop-shop solution it
requires a lot of different things
coming together
and very steady progress and
not lifting things quickly and making
the mistakes that we made before
it's been the view that vaccines are the
silver bullet and they do remain the way
out but tonight that silver may be
a little less lustrous a realization
that things may take a little longer
and be a little harder than we'd hoped