Scientist calls for curbs on UK arrivals to halt South African Covid variant | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/02/scientist-calls-for-curbs-on-uk-arrivals-to-halt-south-african-covid-va
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One of the UK government’s scientific advisers has said there must be a “significant reduction” in people coming into the country to combat the South African coronavirus variant, but closing borders completely was impractical.Prof Calum Semple, who sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), was speaking after Downing Street denied Boris Johnson had been told by Sage scientists two weeks ago to halt all travel or enforce mandatory hotel quarantines on arrivals from all countries to stop new variants. After the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced that cases of the South African variant had been found across England, Labour said it bolstered the argument for closing UK borders or enforcing hotel quarantine for all new arrivals.Semple, a professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, said it was “incredibly important” to “snuff out” the South African variant but there were limits to what could be done.“It’s much easier if you’re a small island such as the Isle of Man to close the borders,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Britain is a complex transit country and it’s a much harder decision to make there. But, in general, I do support restricting movement, particularly of people in this time. You can’t do it altogether when you get a country that’s dependent on imports for food and other essential processes, it’s just not practical, but yes a significant reduction in the movement of people is incredibly important at present.”
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