'New horror': British PM Boris Johnson warns of 'rough winter' as COVID-19 cases surge

After pausing the roadmap for reopening by up to four weeks to tackle the fast-spreading hyper contagious Delta variant, UK Prime minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday warned of “rough winters” ahead. The British PM, however, said that it is "looking good" for July 19 to be the "terminus point" for lifting England's coronavirus restrictions. In his address at the Downing Street, Johnson on Monday did not rule out the prospects of lockdown in the winters as the seven-day average for hospitalizations in the UK drastically spiked, with a noticeable rise in the ICU admissions, according to Sky. 

As the UK accelerated its vaccination programme to respond to the rapid spread of the Delta variant, Johnson said that he will never exclude that there’s a possibility of “some new horror” that the government simply hadn’t budgeted for or accounted for. His remarks came as he indicated reimposing the COVID-19 health protocols for later this year if the emerging coronavirus cases spiralled out of control. Although citing the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines and the UK’s successful vaccination campaign, the UK Prime minister said that “it’s looking good” to end all the legal restrictions in England on the new 19 July deadline reached by the government. 

According to the data listed on the government website, as many as 60 percent of adults an estimated 31 million have now been fully vaccinated in the UK, with more than 43.1 million people (81 percent) given two shots. But the UK PM insisted that the country may have rough winters for “all sorts of reasons,” adding for one it could be the mounting pressure on the NHS staff and medics.

Johnson's advisor, Dr. Susan Hopkins, reportedly warned that there might be a need for the UK to enforce winter lockdown in case the hospitals were overwhelmed.  The cases of Delta strain B.1.617.2 of SARS-CoV-2 have surged by 33,630 since last week in the UK, Public Health England warned in a report. New data indicated that at least 99 percent of sequenced and genotyped cases of the novel coronavirus accounted for the Delta variant. 

On way to becoming ‘dominant strain’ worldwide

Earlier last week, World Health Organization’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan warned at a news conference that because of its significantly increased transmissibility the delta variant is now on the way to becoming the dominant variant worldwide. She added, that scientists still need more data on the variant, including its impact on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. The highly virulent strain of the novel coronavirus, also known as B.1.617.2, is more transmissible than the Alpha variant, or the UK variant, and is of the most dangerous lineage of the virus that has spread to at least 70 countries. 

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