Brazilian Strain, can we help?

[Ineke]

One out of the six cases of the people with the Brazilian strain of the virus cannot be traced, due to errors in their contact details. Can Mumsnetters help find this person? Surely someone would know if a friend or relative had returned from Brazil, (via a no direct route admittedly), just before hotel quarantine, so would it be acceptable to inform Track and Trace and nip this in the bud. Could save lives, could save the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

I think that the imperative to find this person is to establish if they were indeed a traveller, or if thus is a case of transmission within UK

If it was transmission here, then the contact tracing around that person is still important, because they might have got it from a (hitherto unknown) superspreading person, who is very likely to have passed it on to other people too.

It's quite possible that the test was one handed out in door-to-door distribution in high risk areas. Very easy to not log it properly

The U.K. is embarrassingly backwards with regards to contact tracking and keeping the borders. People know this which is why they are free to travel and come back. Parents at my children’s school went all over the world at Christmas. They are now coming back and doing everything to avoid quarantine and to avoid paying for testing. Some are coming from Brazil. I know this because they ask on WhatsApp group how they can avoid quarantine and how they can get free tests from nhs hubs. And they post all the photos of holiday to the group too. So there is no point in trying to track the one. There will be loads more.

They are now coming back and doing everything to avoid quarantine and to avoid paying for testing.

As somebody who has travelled ( work had to) in the last year, and having gone through a couple of variants of quarantine/isolation post travel outside the UK if this is going on it really grips my .

We need to keep access between the non-red list countries going (if sensible) for essential reasons but these stories are all manna from heaven for the "just close the borders" brigade.

Frankly there should be a special place in hell reserved for those prepared to lie (and get their family to lie) about their travel history.

Either the vaccines and subsequent boosters hold or I think we're screwed. If this is out and running then schools opening will spread it like wildfire. I'm betting and hoping on the vaccines holding up and doing the heavy lifting.Lets hope so anyway.

Can Mumsnetters help find this person?

I wouldn't recommend it - given what happens on here if someone mentions a rule breach, they'd probably be burned at the stake

@notimagain

They are now coming back and doing everything to avoid quarantine and to avoid paying for testing.

As somebody who has travelled ( work had to) in the last year, and having gone through a couple of variants of quarantine/isolation post travel outside the UK if this is going on it really grips my .

We need to keep access between the non-red list countries going (if sensible) for essential reasons but these stories are all manna from heaven for the "just close the borders" brigade.

Frankly there should be a special place in hell reserved for those prepared to lie (and get their family to lie) about their travel history.

Yes this is going on. I have also travelled lots and paid for quarantine in two countries. Paid for lots of private testing. I totally respect the countries I visited for keeping people safe. It’s a disgrace that the U.K. has such a chaotic approach. I was so embarrassed to return to the U.K. (in lockdown) and find no staff at Heathrow. Not even a customs officer. Not even a temperature check or a question asked. Having just flown around the world and been met by the army at different countries. People do not like rules. People do not like lock down. However, if we had done this properly we would now have the freedom that Australians, Singaporeans and New Zealanders can enjoy.

I was so embarrassed to return to the U.K. (in lockdown) and find no staff at Heathrow. Not even a customs officer.

I've got a stack of points still sat on my LHR reward card so I know customs have been can be thin on the ground (to the naked eye) there but I thought the Border/passport control element had been beefed up... even the BBC were carrying a story about the queues yesterday..

www.bbc.com/news/business-56209431

I think one problem is that UK gov historically have always has been a bit keen to offload responsibility for admin onto the private sector - for example for quite some time the onus has been on the airline to ensure a PLF is filled in before boarding, and that has perhaps led to a reluctance by HMG (or inability due to lack of person power) to ensure 100% physical checks at the Border by officials.

I'm not for one moment saying it's excusable, but I can see why things have developed as they have.

I hate that this person has been allowed to do this. Why don’t they come forward?

@bluewanda

I hate that this person has been allowed to do this. Why don’t they come forward?

I don't think it's known yet whether it's someone who's been in Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. During the press conference yesterday it was suggested it could be someone who was tested as part of community surge testing i.e. had someone knock on their door and hand them a test to take and return. That would explain why they've not been wondering why their results never came back as I imagine you would if you asked for a test and never heard back.

There's no proof yet the person has done anything wrong - their only mistake has been to not register their details properly but that could be for all kinds of reasons.

@isthismylifenow

I don't live in the UK, but this morning I heard about this on the international news segment on our local radio station. I was a bit taken aback when the newsreader announced, "The United Kingdom is conducting a manhunt for an unidentified person who tested positive for the Brazilian variant".

We don't hear too much about your news, so this seemed a little dramatic.

It is! But plenty of people have drunk the Kool-Aid and are thirsty for more, hence this thread.

Every time I read and OP with 'surely' in it my eyes glaze over.

@bluewanda

I hate that this person has been allowed to do this. Why don’t they come forward?

Maybe they don't know. Maybe they don't want to be savaged, possibly assaulted or worse by people who believe this is akin to a death sentence and have completely lost the plot.

They might not even know that they made a mistake in sending back the kit.

If they hadn't travelled themself, they why would they even think the hoo-ha was about them?

It's pretty important to discover if this sample came from someone who travelled, or if the transmission took place here.

We sequence a lot of samples, but that's still far from all, and if there is a spreader wandering round somewhere (perhaps not this person, but perhaps onwards from others who caught it in same way as them) we need to know.

Current vaccines will work fine against this strain. The scientists have been very clear with this.

I’ve just had a pop up saying the person has been found

Will any MNetter claim the credit?

Whilst there is a potential prison sentence for lying about not being about countries on the "red list", which includes Brazil, I've not checked back, but I thought that the travel of the individual concerned was before the potential prison sentences were introduced.

Quite why our inept govt thought it was a good idea to attempt to control international travel and introduce quarantine measures a year after the first cases and vaccine is starting to have an impact, who knows?

Whilst there is a potential prison sentence for lying about not being about countries on the "red list", which includes Brazil, I've not checked back, but I thought that the travel of the individual concerned was before the potential prison sentences were introduced.

AFAIK there's never been any suggestion from those in power that the individual being sought had made an errors in Border paper work (the Passenger Locator Form), lied about his/her travel history...or even that he/she had been to Brazil or even out of the UK...

@bluewanda

I hate that this person has been allowed to do this. Why don’t they come forward?

So the person reported themselves at 3pm on 3rd, which may well be as soon as they heard of it and figured out how, because not everybody sees the news every day. They also say they quarantined. Doesn't sound like such a reprobate to me.

The Brazilian variant poses no extra threat and the Astrazeneca vaccine works well against it, so well that it doesn't need tweaking:

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-variant-exc-idUSKBN2AX1NS

That'll be a crushing disappointment to the doomsters, starfro

Never mind though - there'll probably be another variant along soon and they can panic about that instead

[quote starfro]The Brazilian variant poses no extra threat and the Astrazeneca vaccine works well against it, so well that it doesn't need tweaking:

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-variant-exc-idUSKBN2AX1NS[/quote]
This is such BULLSHIT!!

How desperate can you get:
"a source with knowledge of the study told Reuters"

This is "my friend knows someone who knows Mr X who works with Mrs Y and she overheard someone saying ......" journalism.

If they had preliminary data that showed this, they'd have held a press conference, not leaked it via the fu**ing janitor.

@notimagain

They are now coming back and doing everything to avoid quarantine and to avoid paying for testing.

As somebody who has travelled ( work had to) in the last year, and having gone through a couple of variants of quarantine/isolation post travel outside the UK if this is going on it really grips my .

We need to keep access between the non-red list countries going (if sensible) for essential reasons but these stories are all manna from heaven for the "just close the borders" brigade.

Frankly there should be a special place in hell reserved for those prepared to lie (and get their family to lie) about their travel history.

Agreed - the system is just full of holes and most people are doing their best to find them.

Chatting to someone the other week and their kids had found test certificate templates online and were producing forgeries for the family to use when they travelled so they didn't have to pay for one.

The rules themselves are daft though - if you fly direct from certain countries you have to quarantine in a hotel. If you fly via Ireland, you can do it at home.

At the moment we're exactly where we were early Feb last year. Thinking we're in control because a few cases have arrived and got caught by T&T ... then within a couple of weeks - oh a case escaped - which with hindsight turned out to be several thousand cases.....

@Puzzledandpissedoff

That'll be a crushing disappointment to the doomsters, starfro

Never mind though - there'll probably be another variant along soon and they can panic about that instead

Yeah, there's already disappointment appearing on the thread.

I have a very good source high up in the world of virology, and their opinion is that these variants are not worth getting excited about. The possible threat comes many mutations down the line.

The rules themselves are daft though - if you fly direct from certain countries you have to quarantine in a hotel. If you fly via Ireland, you can do it at home.

That's not what the rules say...from the UK gov website at

www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors

"If you have been in a country on the travel ban red list in the 10 days before you arrive, you will need to quarantine in a government approved hotel."

i.e. It doesn't matter if you arrive in the UK via Ireland, Paris or Timbuktu, if you have been in a red list country in the ten days prior to arrival in the UK it's hotel quarantine.

There was however in the past something nicknamed the "Dublin dodge" to avoid home isolation at the start of all this but I think even that loophole got closed.