James O'Brien: We left our country wide open to coronavirus

2 February 2021, 12:09

By Sam Sholli

The UK has been left "wide open to coronavirus", says James O'Brien, as a door-to-door testing blitz of 80,000 people is underway in England to combat the South African variant.

The debate around how the Government should handle UK borders has come under more spotlight after the number of cases in England of the South Africa Covid-19 variant rose to 105.

London, Kent and Hertfordshire are just some of the areas in England being offered mass testing as 11 cases were discovered in people with no links to travel or previous cases of the strain.

James questioned the Government's Covid travel policy amid reports of ministers pushing for a temporary closure of all UK borders to curb the spread of coronavirus.

James said: "One of the reasons why so many people in this country have died...is the fact that we did next to nothing to stop the virus being brought in to these islands on an industrial scale."

He added: "One of the main reasons why so many people have died has surely got to be we left our country wide open to coronavirus.

"And now, with the new variants that may compromise the efficacy of some of the vaccines...but hopefully won't, we seem to be doing it again."

Experts advising the Government said they did not think the current vaccines would need to be tweaked to deal with any spread of the South African variant.