Ministers are being urged to provide clarity after advising against all but essential travel into and out of eight areas where the Covid variant first identified in India is believed to be spreading fastest.
According to the guidance, which appears to have been updated on 21 May and is not law, journeys to and from the affected areas – Bedford, Blackburn and Darwen, Bolton, Burnley, Kirklees, Leicester, Hounslow, and North Tyneside – should be avoided “unless essential”. Exemptions include travel for work, where working from home is not possible, and education.
The Guardian understands that the Cabinet Office guidance for Bolton was updated online on 14 May, and other areas were subsequently added. A source said the “layout of the guidance was adjusted” on Friday, hence the date mark which suggested it had been published on 21 May. However, archived webpages suggest many areas were only added to the guidance on that date.
The update did not seem to have been accompanied by an official announcement and it is also understood that local leaders and public health directors were unaware of it.
Figures in Bolton council were not informed of the developments, the Guardian understands. And earlier on Monday 24 May, the director of public health for North Tyneside council, Wendy Burke, had told ChronicleLive it was “certainly OK” to visit the area, provided people “exercise some caution”, despite it apparently being added to the list three days earlier.
Layla Moran, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for coronavirus, urged the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to make a statement in parliament to explain the new guidance: “This is a major change to policy that will have a huge impact on people’s lives. Simply updating the government website without an official announcement is a recipe for confusion and uncertainty.
“Local people and public health leaders in these areas need urgent clarity from the government. It seems crucial lessons have still not been learnt about the importance of clear messaging during a pandemic.”
The recently elected mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, said she would raise the issue with the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi on Tuesday. She tweeted: “If Govt are concerned we need clear guidance and support not advice that could cause anxiety and confusion.”
Yasmin Qureshi, Labour MP for Bolton South East and shadow international development minister, said: “I’m just gobsmacked. They’re making such an important announcement and they don’t even have the decency to tell us or tell our constituents.
“The least I would expect is a letter or email from [Hancock] or his office as a matter of courtesy. Further and more importantly, my constituents needed to know. Many will have planned for the long weekend, bought tickets, made arrangements.”
Covid cases have surged in Bolton, which currently has the highest rolling seven-day infection rate in the country, at 450.7 cases per 100,000 residents, a 60% week-on-week rise. The uptick is thought to largely be down to the India variant, known as B.1.617.2.
The town’s vaccination rate among over-40s is in line with the national average of 89.8%, though there are some differences locally. The rise in cases has not yet translated into a rise in hospital admissions and previously there has been a 10-day lag between cases and hospitalisations.
Bolton has had some form of restrictions in place for almost 10 months now. The first local lockdown started on 31 July, when its case rate was 20 per 100,000 residents, and was eased on 3 October when the rate was 249 per 100,000.
A week later the town went into tier 2, by which point cases had risen to 336 per 100,000. By 23 October they had increased a further 65%, at which time tier 3 restrictions were imposed. Cases plateaued but only shortly before England entered a second national lockdown. Another local lockdown in December also failed to stop a rise in cases.
Experts questioned the effectiveness of the updated guidance given the spread of B.1.617.2 and said that without publicity for changes in advice, the majority of people affected would be unaware and so unable to follow it.
Prof Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “Movement controls like this are rarely that effective at controlling the spread of an epidemic disease even if rigorously enforced. Any benefit for such restrictions is more likely to come from delaying rather than preventing geographical spread.”
Hunter pointed out that in the week ending 15 May, 151 of 204 English local authorities reported one or more cases of B.1.617.2 up from 128 in the previous week, according to data from the Sanger Institute.
Rowland Kao, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh who contributes to the Spi-M modelling subgroup of Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, concurred.
“It’s important to recognise that, given that this variant has now been spreading in [the country] for several weeks, there is a very good chance that it has already spread beyond the limits of areas we already know about – especially given the release of travel restrictions we have already experienced,” he said.
“Such measures as restricting travel from known areas are thus only likely to slow the spread of the variant, rather than totally stop it.” He added that the usefulness of such guidance would “entirely depend” on other measures including the continued vaccine rollout, test and trace, localised measures, and support for people required to self-isolate.
Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and a member of the Independent Sage committee, said: “With a dangerous new variant spreading we can ill afford communication blunders like this.”
A government spokesperson said: “Working with local authorities, we took swift and decisive action to slow the spread of the B.1.617.2 variant by introducing surge testing and bringing forward second doses of the vaccine for the most vulnerable.
“We provided additional guidance for those living in affected areas when we became aware of the risk posed by the variant, to encourage people to take an extra cautious approach when meeting others or travelling.”
