Boris Johnson's plan to lift almost all anti-Covid restrictions in England on Monday is a threat to the world and provides fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants, international experts say.
The UK's position as a global transport hub will mean any new variant will spread rapidly around the world, scientists and doctors warned at an emergency summit.
Government advisers in New Zealand, Israel and Italy were among those who raised the alarm, with more than 1,200 scientists backing a letter to Lancet (a peer-reviewed medical journal) warning that the strategy could allow the development of vaccine-resistant variants. .
"We can not understand why this is happening, despite the scientific knowledge you have," said Prof. José Martin-Moreno a senior adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Others warned that the British government's approach would be imitated, for political expediency, by authorities elsewhere around the world.
"Because of our position as a global travel hub, any variant that becomes dominant in the UK will spread to the rest of the globe. UK policy does not only affect us. It affects everyone and everyone has an interest in what we do. ” - said Prof. Christina Pagel, director of the Clinical Operations Research unit at University College London.
"We believe the government is embarking on a dangerous and unethical experiment and we urge it to suspend its plans to abandon the measures on July 19, 2021," the letter to Lancet read.
Sources: Guardian, CNBC, Telegraph
