MORE than 1,200 scientists from around the globe have condemned UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to go ahead with so-called Freedom Day on July 19 amid rising cases, warning that the move will pose a “danger to the world”, media reports said.
In an an emergency summit held on Friday (16), some 1, 200 global experts have urged Johnson to urgently reconsider its plan to end Covid restrictions in England on Monday (19) as they feel that the reopening will lead to the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants, media reports said.
Citing Britain's position as a global transport hub, scientists and physicians, who all signed the recent letter to The Lancet warning against the reopening, reportedly have claimed at the summit that any new variant which may originate here will rapidly spread around the world.
Official government advisors to New Zealand, Israel and Italy all sounded alarmed at the UK government’s strategy, stated media reports.
The warning comes as more than 50,000 cases were recorded on Friday (16), the highest figure since mid January. A further 49 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were also reported – bringing the UK total death toll from the pandemic to 128,642.
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics suggests that 1 in 95 people in England had Covid last week.
Professor Michael Baker, a member of the New Zealand government’s Covid advisory group said his colleagues were “amazed” and “astounded” that the UK had decided to lift curbs when transmission of the virus was rising so rapidly in the country.
Experts also warned that British government’s approach might be imitated "for political expediency" by authorities elsewhere.
“What I fear is that that the some of the worst impulses in many of our states will follow the UK example,” The Guardian quoted Dr William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School researcher and a pioneering Aids researcher who also chairs Access Health International, a New York-based thinktank.
“The world is watching the current avoidable crisis unfold in the UK,” said Dr Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, who is taking part in Friday’s summit.
Experts’ warning came as Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned on Thursday (15) that the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 could reach “quite scary” levels within weeks, as cases soared caused by the more contagious Delta variant and the lifting of lockdown restrictions.
