Indian Covid variant found in York – but it’s under control, say health officials

There have been a couple of cases of the Indian variant of Covid-19 found in York.

It is understood that the number of cases is low. York has surge testing plans in place, should they be needed

The city’s health experts say they believe that they are one-off cases and they have been carefully monitoring them.

People testing positive for variants of concern have been traced quickly and have often recently returned from travelling abroad.

We are told that there has been no further onward transmission.

Assistant director of Public Health, Fiona Philips, says it appears that these variants are more transmissible but not necessarily more serious.

She also added that it did not appear that it made the vaccine less effective.

But she warned that not all tests pick up variants so it is crucial that people still follow coronavirus safety guidance.

She said: “Not all tests are processed in labs that can do the full sequencing.

“There’s probably about 30 to 40 per cent of tests in York are processed in labs that can do that sequencing. “It takes about a week for the full sequencing to be done and once that sequencing is done, if it is identified that it is either a variant of concern or a variant under investigation then that is automatically sent to our colleagues in Public Health England.

“They will do the contact tracing and follow up with the individual. “For those cases where we know it’s one of those variants, they are followed up reasonably quickly.

“But there is a risk that people could have one of those variants that hasn’t been done in the lab that had done the full sequencing, so it is something that we still need to be cautious around.

“What we see is that most of those variants are where people have come back from foreign travel.

“As foreign travel opens up more, we do really need people to follow that advice when they return from foreign countries in terms of the quarantining that they need to do. That’s going to be really key in the next step of the roadmap.”

The advice in York is to follow the guidelines – to wear face masks, wash hands regularly and maintain social distancing – and get tested on a regular basis.

Scientists are keeping a close eye on the spread of the Indian variant across the UK, but there are currently no signs that infection is leading to rising hospital admissions, experts have said.