Boris Johnson today cancelled his trip to India saying it was the only ‘sensible’ course of action 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’.
‘In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week,’ the statement said.
‘Instead, Prime Ministers Modi and Johnson will speak later this month to agree and launch their ambitious plans for the future partnership between the UK and India.’
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.
‘But Narendra Modi and I have basically come to the conclusion that, very sadly, I won’t be able to go ahead with the trip. I do think it’s only sensible to postpone, given what’s happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there.
‘Countries around the world including our own have been through this. I think everybody’s got a massive amount of sympathy with India, what they’re going through.
‘And I just want to stress that this is, we’re going to be going back, the relationship between the UK and India is of huge importance, and I’ll be talking to Narendra Modi on Monday, we’ll be trying to do as much as we can, virtually.
‘Of course it will be frustrating, but we’ll try and replicate as much as we can remotely, and then look forward to doing it in person as and when circumstances allow, and hopefully before the Cop summit in November and hopefully we’ll get Narendra Modi over for the G7 in June.’
There had been growing speculation about the fate of the trip as the situation threatens to spiral in the India – with calls for the country to be added to the UK’s list of destinations where travel is banned and Britons returning must check into quarantine hotels.
Mr Johnson had already pushed the visit back from earlier this year as a result of the UK’s third lockdown.
Rather than several days of talks with Narendra Modi and high-profile events, it was only due to be a single day next weekend – but is now off altogether.
Boris Johnson today cancelled his trip to India amid surging coronavirus cases and alarm about a new variant
The Covid variants circulating in the UK: Public Health England says officially the Indian variant has been spotted 77 times in Scotland and England since March
Cases have been rising sharply in India with anxiety that a mutant strain could be responsible
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE INDIA VARIANT?
Real name: B.1.617
When and where was it discovered? The variant was first reported as being of concern by the Indian government in late March. The first cases appear to date back to October 2020.
What mutations does it have? The two main mutations are named E484Q and L452R, which scientists suspect can help it to transmit faster and to get past immune cells made in response to older variants. Those mutations are routinely not found on other variants monitored by Public Health England.
How many people in the UK have been infected with it? 77 people so far, according to a report published on April 15. Their locations are unknown.
The news comes after an expert warned the Indian coronavirus variant could ‘pose a threat’ to mr Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown.
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 on Saturday suggest cases have risen to 160, suggesting it’s spreading rapidly in the community.
PHE currently lists it as a ‘variant under investigation’, a tier below other troublesome strains including the Kent, South African and Brazilian variants.
But Professor Altmann told Good Morning Britain today: ‘My assumption from everything I’ve seen is that it will become a variant of concern.’
He added: ‘I think our road map is going well and at the moment, in this country, we are doing rather well, enjoying unlocking – but out there there is the Indian variant, the South African, Brazilian etc, and they do pose a threat.’
SAGE member Professor Andrew Hayward backed calls for India to be put on the ‘red list’ to buy experts time to study the variant in more detail.
The infectious disease expert urged the Government to ‘err on the side of caution and act sooner rather than later’.
But top experts studying Britain’s Covid variants said the Indian variant was unlikely to ever take off in the UK because its mutations were ‘not top tier’.
They questioned whether the strain actually is more transmissible than older versions, claiming the evidence was still murky.
Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘This variant has a couple of mutations that are among those that we think are important that should be watched carefully.
‘But they’re actually probably not at the very kind of top tier of mutations, for example in the B.1.1.7 – or Kent variant – or the South African variant, that generate the most concern.’
Dr Barnett said the rise of the Indian variant had happened at the same time India suffered a third wave, which may explain its higher prevalence.
‘In terms of spread, clearly this variant has increased in frequency in India around the same time as their very large and tragic recent wave.
‘But I just don’t think we know yet whether there’s a cause and effect relationship – is this variant driving that spread? Or is it happening at the same time perhaps due to a coincidence?’
He added: ‘And one thing to note is that there were some sequences of this variant B1.617 seen late last year. And so in some sense, if it really is driving this wave, the fuse has been burning for quite a long time, which would make it look, probably less transmissible than B.1.1.7.’
The Indian variant was first spotted by scientists in March when it was described by the government in New Delhi as a ‘double mutant’.
They suggested that the variant had formed as a hybrid of two other strains and that it showed signs of being more infectious and less easily targeted by the immune system.
Two key mutations set it apart from others – named E484Q and L452R – with both of them found on the ‘spike’ that the virus uses to latch onto human cells.
These are not thought to be key mutations of any of the other variants on Public Health England’s list, but have appeared in virus samples before.
SAGE’s Professor Hayward, an epidemiologist at University College London, backed calls for travel to India to be scrapped.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘It’s a balance of harms and benefits and the challenge with that is that the level of harm is quite high because we’re highly connected with India – there’s a lot of economic interaction as well as family and social interaction.
‘And on the other hand, what we have is an unknown level of risk – my own preference in all of this is to err on the side of caution and to act sooner rather than later. But ultimately, that’s going to be a political decision.’
But Professor Hayward admitted scientists aren’t sure whether the variant is actually more infectious than older versions.
He added: ‘The evidence of increased transmissibility and escape from immunity is circumstantial.’
Professor Danny Altmann (left), an Imperial College London immunologist, said there were vaccinated vulnerable Britons who could ‘still be caught out by variants like this’. SAGE member Professor Andrew Hayward (right) backed calls for India to be put on the ‘red list’ to buy experts time to study the variant in more detail