Boris Johnson defends UK border regime amid hunt for Covid patient

Boris Johnson has defended the UK’s border regime after the government rushed to track down an unknown individual who tested positive for a concerning strain of coronavirus originating in Brazil.

Six British residents tested positive for the variant of Covid-19, with three cases in Scotland and two in England. Public Health England made a public call for a third individual who completed a test on February 12 or 13, and had yet to receive their result.

The as-yet unknown person used a home testing kit, but did not adequately complete the contact details on the registration form, according to government officials.

Scientists are concerned that the Brazilian strain of coronavirus may be more infectious and resistant to immunisation and previous infection. But speaking at a visit to a primary school on Monday, the prime minister said the government’s advisers “don’t think there is a threat to the wider public” from the Brazilian variant.

Hotel quarantine was introduced last month for all passengers arriving from Brazil and 33 “red list” countries. Opposition politicians have long called for a more comprehensive quarantine policy to stop new variants spreading in the UK.

Johnson insisted that the UK has “one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world” and it could thwart the spread of variants. Surge testing has been introduced to South Gloucestershire, where two cases were detected, similar to other localities when cases of the more transmissible South African variant were detected.

“If you look at what we’ve done in the case of the South African variant, a massive effort went in there. And the same is going on now to contain any spread of the Brazilian variant,” he said.

The prime minister added: “We are continuing to do everything we can to stop variants coming in at our borders” and there was “no reason” to think the current vaccines were not effective against the Brazilian variants.

Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the House of Commons health select committee and a former Conservative health secretary, called for a tougher border regime following the diagnosis.

“It shows that it needs to be tightened up still further because if we are going to protect the road map out of lockdown then the name of the game is going to be stop new variants coming in, some of which may end up being immune to the new vaccines,” he told the BBC.

Hunt said the fact that the government was struggling to track down one individual suggested the test and trace system was “in much better shape than we were three months ago”.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow home secretary, accused the government of “unforgivable incompetence” and wrote to the home secretary Priti Patel calling for tougher measures.

“People will be appalled to hear someone with the Brazilian variant cannot be identified, raising questions about how many others may have been missed by quarantine measures,” he said.

The P.1 variant from Brazil shares several mutations with the 501.V2 coronavirus that has emerged in South Africa. The changes make it both more contagious and more resistant to the immunity acquired by vaccination or previous infection. P.1 also seems more able to escape from immune recognition than the variant dominant in the UK.

Professor Lawrence Young of Warwick Medical School said: “Recent reports from [the Brazilian city] Manaus, where the P.1 variant is fuelling a surge in infections, suggest that this variant is responsible for reinfecting individuals who were previously infected with a different variant of the virus.

“That’s why it’s even more important to do everything to stop the spread of this virus and all other variants including strict border controls and an efficient test, trace and isolate system.”

Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham, said the appearance of P.1 in the UK was not unexpected.

“It’s possibly somewhat surprising we haven’t seen it to date as it has been associated with high case numbers in Brazil, and has been detected in several other countries including Belgium, Italy and Switzerland,” he said. “This recent set of cases in the UK will need rapid epidemiological investigations to establish if there are further linked cases.”