Terrifying map shows Delta Covid-19 strain spread across UK

A shocking map has shown just how fast the Delta coronavirus variant has spread across the UK, as experts warn a horror month is on the horizon.

A terrifying map has shown the rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant across the UK in the last four weeks, as experts warn a horror month could be on the horizon for the nation.

The strain – which spreads more easily, is more severe, and is more resistant to vaccines – was first detected in India last October. It’s now spread to at least 62 countries, including Australia, and accounts for 96 per cent of new cases in the UK, which have begun to surge again despite a successful vaccination campaign.

Reporting 7742 new infections on Monday – up by more than 2000 since last week – the disturbing figures, and warnings of a “substantial third wave”, have forced the government to reconsider lifting lockdown on June 21.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he would halt the final easing of lockdown restrictions in England, ordering a four-week delay to speed up the vaccination program and highlighting July 19 now as a “terminus date”.

“I bitterly regret the fact that we must be cautious now,” he told reporters.

“We want a road map that is irreversible and to achieve an irreversible road map you have to be cautious.

“And the objective of this short delay is to use these valuable, crucial weeks to save thousands of lives – lives that would otherwise be lost, I’m afraid – by vaccinating millions more people as fast as we can. July 19 will be a terminus date.”

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This map shows which areas are dominated by the Delta variant, with the darker colours representing 100 per cent. Picture: The Sun/Wellcome Sanger Institute

Wellcome data shows the Delta variant now makes up at least 88 per cent of cases in the UK, without accounting for surge testing or traveller cases. Picture: The Sun/Wellcome Sanger Institute

Scientists warn of ‘significant resurgence’ in hospitalisations

A government source told The Times earlier this week that any decision to prolong the remaining restrictions was “about giving people certainty”.

“The worst-case scenario is that we ease restrictions and then have to implement them again,” they said.

“This has to be a one-way ticket.”

If restrictions in the UK were lifted as initially planned on Sunday, scientists advising the government warned of a “significant resurgence” in people needing hospital treatment for Covid-19, ignited by a surge of infections in younger, unvaccinated people.

“An announcement that Stage 4 of the road map is to be delayed would be justified,” University of Edinburgh Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Mark Woolhouse, told The Sun.

“The arrival of the Delta variant has changed the assessment of the risks of reopening: it is more transmissible, causes more severe disease and the vaccines are less effective against it.”

Speaking on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, University College London’s Professor Andrew Hayward said “it’s now very clear that we will have a substantial third wave of infections” if the highly transmissible strain continues to proliferate.

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Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a four-week delay to the full lifting of coronavirus restrictions for England. Picture: Jonathan Buckmaster/Pool/AFP

The variant could cause devastation across the UK as soon as July, experts have warned. Picture: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

“The really big question is how much that wave of infections is going to translate into hospitalisations,” Professor Hayward, a member of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said.

“The fact that we’ve got 55 per cent of the adult population double vaccinated means that this will be substantially less bad than it could’ve been but we still don’t know exactly how bad it could be.”

Prof Hayward said the suggestion from recent findings that the strain is 60 per cent more infectious “is extremely worrying”, calling it “the main thing that will drive the speed with which the next wave comes along”.

“The fact that the level of hospitalisations from this infection appear to be maybe up to double those from the previous infection is of course also extremely concerning even in the context of people having had a single dose of vaccine,” he added.

Vaccine protection against strain is ‘very, very substantial’

If the Delta strain can wreak havoc somewhere like the UK – where 56.9 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated and 79 per cent have received their first dose – there have been major concerns, including in Australia, over what it could mean for nations with a less-vaxxed population.

But, data out of the UK has experts increasingly confident that both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs offer significant protection against the strain.

“Vaccine effectiveness against Delta is still very, very substantial,” director of the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute of Medicine, Aziz Sheikh, told The Wall Street Journal.

An analysis of more than 14,000 Delta cases by Public Health England found a double dose of Pfizer reduces the risk of hospitalisation after infection with Delta by 96 per cent.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca jab, meanwhile reduces the risk by 92 per cent, the agency said.

“The vaccines we’ve got are (more) spectacularly effective than we ever dared hope – they really are very good,” England’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said.

But, he warned, while Britain was no longer facing a future of more lockdowns after this one ends, it’s now locked in a race against the virus outbreak.

“We’re in a race against the virus and the vaccines need to get ahead of it and if you’re in a race with somebody you don’t suddenly assist them in putting the afterburners on so they can outpace you,” he said.

Variant likely to become dominant strain in the US

Over in the US, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr Scott Gottleib, has warned the Delta variant is likely to become the dominant source of new infections there, potentially leading to new outbreaks later this year.

“Right now, in the United States, it’s about 10 per cent of infections. It’s doubling every two weeks,” Dr Gottleib told CBS’s Face the Nation.

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Communities in the US that have low vaccination rates face the biggest risk of any new outbreaks. Picture: Patrick T Fallon/AFP

“That doesn’t mean that we’re going to see a sharp uptick in infections, but it does mean that this is going to take over. And I think the risk is really to the fall that this could spike a new epidemic heading into the fall.”

While American health authorities just need to continue using the “tools” at their disposal – the vaccines – he said any risk of new outbreaks is most pronounced in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.

“I think in parts of the country where you have less vaccination, particularly in parts of the South, where you have some cities where vaccination rates are low, there’s a risk that you could see outbreaks with this new variant,” he said.