A new study shows that strict lockdowns would not have worked to stop the new COVID-19 variant from spreading.
“The most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading,” science reporter Pallab Ghosh wrote in a BBC News analysis of the study.
The study, conducted by London’s Imperial College, concluded the new variant was “hugely” more transmissible than the original version.
“There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,” professor Axel Gandy, one of the study’s authors, told BBC News. “This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began.”
The study found that England’s November lockdown had no effect on the new strain, with the previous version being reduced by a third while the new variant almost tripled its spread. The spread may have been fueled by people under 20, with early results indicating the variant spreads more quickly in children than the previous version, though later results showed it spreads quickly regardless of age.
“One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open, and the activities of the adult population were more restricted,” Gandy said. “We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.”
The news has some scientists in the United Kingdom wondering if tougher restrictions will be needed to stop the variant’s spread.
“In simpler terms, unless we do something different, the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations, and more deaths,” professor Jim Naismith of Oxford University told BBC News.
But other experts struck a more optimistic tone, with Warwick University professor Lawrence Young pointing out that it is likely the newly developed vaccines will still be effective.
“Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate,” Young said. “Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body’s immune response.”
There’s also no evidence that the new variant is more deadly, but it does threaten to unleash a surge of new COVID-19 cases.
So far, three U.S. states have identified cases of the variant, with Florida most recently joining Colorado and California in announcing its arrival to their states.
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that more lockdowns and mask mandates are “off the table,” insisting such measures do nothing to “beat the virus.”
“The lie of the lockdown was that if you just locked down, then you can beat the virus,” DeSantis said. “Then why are people having to lockdown two or three times then?”
