Britain’s vaccine roll-out races the covid-19 virus

SCIENTISTS BELIEVE a new variant of covid-19 first passed from one person to another in Kent, in the south-east of England. When it happened, in late September, there were just 79 patients in hospital with the virus in the nine counties that make up the region. Three months later admissions are running higher than during the spring peak. “We haven’t run out of oxygen or dexamethasone or ventilators,” says a local doctor. But medical staff are dangerously thin on the ground: “We are very close to running out of humans.”

Britain is now in a race against the virus. The new variant, which is 50-70% more transmissible, is spreading fast. Having been concentrated in the south-east in the autumn, it has now taken root across the country (as well as beyond Britain’s borders, turning up everywhere from New York to Sydney). Much as Lombardy alerted the world to the pressures covid-19 would place on hospitals, south-east England provides a warning about the impact of the new variant.