Britain Likely In An ‘Early’ COVID-19 Third Wave — Expert

An expert advising the British Government said on Monday that he saw the start of the third wave of infections emerging due to the spread of the Indian variant of the Coronavirus.

Professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group advising the government, said Britain was in the grip of an “early’’ third wave of COVID-19 infections.

He said this was being spearheaded by the Indian variant.

Asked on BBC Radio, whether Britain was already in the third wave of Coronavirus infections, the University of Cambridge academic responded in the affirmative.

“Yes, there has been exponential growth in the number of the new cases, and at least three-quarters of them are the new variant.

“Of course, the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment – all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background, and then become explosive, so the key is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.

“It will probably take longer than earlier waves to emerge because of the fact that we do have quite high levels of vaccination in the population, so, there may be a false sense of security for some time, and that’s our concern,” he said.

On Sunday, Britain counted 3,200 new Coronavirus cases.