THE UK Government has been accused of risking a lethal third wave of the pandemic by suppressing “worrying data” on the Indian variant in order to ease restrictions quickly.

Speaking in the wake of Dominic Cummings’s bombshell revelations about Westminster’s handling of the Covid crisis, Professor Stephen Reicher said it was disturbing that the UK Government was still “spinning” data that did not suit its narrative.

He told the Sunday National that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his team had made a misstep by focusing on dates rather than data and were now giving out mixed messages on health safety.

Reicher pointed out that when Public Health England (PHE) published its data on what is known about the new Indian variant of the virus it was at 10.30pm on a Saturday. A UK Government press conference held beforehand suggested the data would be good news when in fact the risk assessment had been raised from amber to red.

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“They were trying to hide away the data which suggests that actually we have a real problem here,” he said, adding that it appeared to show that the UK Government’s criteria for easing restrictions south of the Border on June 21 were not being met.

“What we are learning more and more is this variant potentially could lead us into a third wave that is as bad as in January,” said Reicher, of the University of St Andrews. “We hope it doesn’t but it could.

“If you look at the Sage modelling it suggests there is a danger of a third wave if the new variant is 30 to 50% more transmissible even if there is no vaccine escape.

“But if you look at the PHE data it tells us that if you have just one jab, the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine is 33% and if you have two then it is 60%, so there is some vaccine escape and what we don’t know yet is what it will mean in terms of virulence of serious disease.”

Reicher questioned why the PHE had raised the risk from amber to red if the news was supposed to be good.

“The PHE assessment of its own data is absolutely the opposite of the spin put on it by the politicians and that is extraordinary,” he said.

So far only 40% of adults and 30% of the whole UK population is vaccinated.

“Hopefully as vaccination rates increase they will become more of a protection but right now we are in a position where only about a third of the population as a whole is vaccinated so we need to be very careful about what we are doing,” said Reicher. “There are not enough alarm bells ringing.”

ECHOING calls for caution from scientists around the UK, Reicher said that widely easing restrictions, as Westminster plans to do in England on June 21, was “risky”.

“I think it would be sensible at this stage to pause re-opening in order to make sure the new variant is not too dangerous. We know it is more transmissible, we know it has some vaccine escape, what we don’t know is what it will mean in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. We are not certain so it would be prudent to pause and make sure it is safe before re-opening,” he said.

He added that by putting so much emphasis on June 21, the Tory government had “painted itself into a corner”.

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“They are in this bind where on the one hand they can’t back out from lifting restrictions because they have raised people’s expectations so high and invested their own political capital in it, but on the other hand there is a real danger so that leads to the problem of contradictory messaging,” said Reicher.

“It becomes incredibly confusing and misses the point that of course we want to open up but it has to be safe to do so. If it is not safe and you don’t do everything you can to suppress the infections we are having at the moment you are going to be in trouble.”

He stressed it was important that an inquiry was held into the Government’s handling of the pandemic as soon as possible.

Johnson has said one will be held next year but Reicher said mistakes were still being made.

“There is nothing much we can do now about the many people who have died unnecessarily but it would stop people dying unnecessarily in the future,” he said.