Coronavirus: Britain ‘confident’ existing vaccines protect against B1.617.2 variant, health secretary says

Matt Hancock said the country was ‘in a race between the vaccination programme and the virus’ but officials were assured ‘the vaccine will overcome’

The variant first identified in India ‘could spread like wildfire’, he said. Case numbers of it in the UK have risen from 520 to 1,313 this week

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A member of the public receives a Covid-19 vaccine on Friday at a temporary vaccination centre in Bolton, northwest England, which with Blackburn has been at the centre of Britain’s rising B1.617.2 variant cases. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:20pm, 16 May 2021Updated: 10:59pm, 16 May 2021

Britain is confident that existing vaccines will provide protection from a more transmissible coronavirus variant that was first identified in India and is now spreading across the country, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday.

England, Scotland and Wales are set to unlock parts of their economy on Monday, but further steps have been put in doubt by the Indian strain.

Hancock told Sky News the government had a “high degree of confidence” that vaccines would stand up to the B1.617.2 variant, following new early data from Oxford University.

Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock. Photo: Jeff Overs/BBC/Handout via Reuters

“That means that we can stay on course with our strategy of using the vaccine to deal with the pandemic,” he said.

Britain, one of the countries hit worst by the pandemic with more than 127,000 deaths, has also seen a rapid deployment of vaccines with nearly 20 million people having been fully vaccinated.

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