The front page news that the more dangerous Indian variant of the coronavirus is circulating in Watford and that our town has the highest incidence of the disease in Hertfordshire is extremely worrying (Watford Observer, May 21 2021).

The threat to local people and the risk that further relaxation of Covid restrictions may be postponed is very real. This is devastating news to me personally as I have had to isolate for most of the pandemic and only got to hug my daughter and grandchildren for the first time this weekend in almost a year.

What is galling is that this is yet another example of the Government ignoring scientific advice and failing to take action to stop the spread of the virus in a timely fashion.

The facts of the latest failure are these. Public Health England flagged up the threat from the Indian variant on April 1 but it took three weeks before India went on the ‘red list’. In that time some 20,000 passengers arrived from India with no requirement to quarantine in hotels. 4.8 per cent of travellers from India over a two-week period tested positive for Covid (compared to a 0.1 per cent infection rate in England).

No wonder the Indian variant has spread and this is entirely Boris Johnson’s fault. Reports say he delayed action because he had arranged to visit India on April 25 to sign a trade deal. Ironically the spread of the increasingly dominant Indian strain in the UK is the biggest threat to business and trade.

Boris Johnson and the Tories may have a popularity bounce in the opinion polls because of the success of the vaccination programme (delivered by the NHS and volunteers and not by the Government by the way) but they should be held accountable for their failures which have undoubtedly caused the loss of thousands of lives and now threaten more.

Mike Jackson

Kingsfield Road, Watford