They also allow governments to appear tough and *doing something* in ways that are popular with the media, allowing nearly everyone to ignore much more structural issues like sick pay.
https://twitter.com/FaheemYounus/status/1464643759778508801
A few months ago the UK was able to genomically sequence about 10,000 PCR tests per week. There are currently about 280,000 positive PCR tests per week in the UK.
cen.acs.org/analytical-che…
cen.acs.org/analytical-che…
I don't know how many samples South Africa can sequence per day, but they had cases in the hundreds a couple of weeks ago, now low thousands. Much easier to find variants when you're dealing with hundreds or low thousands of samples to sequence.
One thing that would lower prevalence would be people not having to go to work when they're sick. The UK has lowest statutory sick pay in the OECD and no plans to increase it. Also attacking unemployment benefits.
Keir Starmer has mentioned sick pay literally once on twitter since March 2020. Including the March 2020 tweet for fairness. 
This is a small sample.
The opposition's main Covid management talking point throughout the pandemic has been about trying to attack Boris Johnson on 'failing to secure our borders and letting in dangerous variants' when they weren't arguing to send kids back to school during the first delta wave.
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