How did it get here?

[Clotsaway]

From my understanding, anyone coming from India have to undergo 10 days of hotel quarantine. So if everyone who arrived here did actually quarantine, then how did the delta plus variant escape?

Also, why is the government not taking action to go door to door in those areas where the variant is and carry out testing etc like they did for the South African variant, and prevent it from spreading further.

Well there was a massive delay putting India on the red list so that was probably the issue.

It’s been here since April so cat out of the bad situation now. It’s the dominant strain.

Not everyone has to quarantine, my husband is a international working and because he has a seamen's book they are totally exempt from all quarantines, so there are a lot of international oil workers travelling around the world and not quarantine and other jobs that are on the exemption lists.

Or just because a variant is first discovered in a particular place doesn't mean it originated there.

So perhaps "we" took "it" there.

I wonder is it possible for the virus to just mutate the same in two different countries. I mean its probably undergoing minor mutations all the time. Is it so impossible that a mutation would be repeated.

Because the hotel quarantine was introduced after at least 20.000 people from flights over a period of weeks were allowed in with only a test before boarding. The numbers were high, a few people had been to religious gatherings before flying, and a high percentage over a high number WITH NO REAL TRACK AND TRACE means it had an easy way in. If track&trace worked, and if people were really staying home (which means being helped to stay at home) it would have been perhaps less quick to spread into the community. But variants spread. We have exported the Kent variant to the rest of the world, after all…

Although the majority of the blame lies with the government let's face it people were supposed to self isolate and didn't
Also many travelled via Turkey etc
Once again the I do what I want brigade ruin it for everyone
Yes viruses spread. But it could have been slower to let vaccines progress further

@romdowa

I wonder is it possible for the virus to just mutate the same in two different countries. I mean its probably undergoing minor mutations all the time. Is it so impossible that a mutation would be repeated.

Totally possible - it's called convergent evolution, happens all the time in nature (check out the attached picture of placental mammals and marsupials which diverged about 160 million years ago). The K417N mutation is known to have arisen multiple times in different lineages. What we really don't want is for delta to pick up the E484K mutation seen in the South African variant as that would impact vaccine efficacy.

Whenever the UK put India on the red list, it was always going to cause a panic rush back for any British citizens in India, before the hotel quarantine came in. Probably made it worse as they all came back at the same time than if it was on the Amber list.

Full list of those exempt from Hotel quarantine here OP:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules
Plus the government knew about the Delta varient for weeks before introducing these measures.