Britain has repeatedly trumpeted its mass vaccination program against Covid-19, hailing its early approval of jabs as a key part of the long struggle to return to normal life.
But infection rates remain stubbornly high, contrasting sharply with its European neighbors and prompting fresh questions of the government.
For two weeks, the number of new cases has wavered between 35,000 and 40,000 a day, and on Monday nudged closer to 50,000 — the highest since the July peak of the “Delta” variant outbreak.
The daily death toll has often exceeded 100 since the summer, adding to an overall toll of more than 138,000, second only to Russia in Europe.
“Sadly, at the moment the UK has a higher level of Covid-19 than most other comparable countries, this is seen not just in positive tests but in hospital admissions and deaths,” said Jim Naismith, professor of structural biology at the University of Oxford.
Across the Channel, France is recording some 4,000 cases a day and Germany 10,000. Deaths are running at about 30 and 60 daily respectively.
Questions are being asked about the gulf in figures, even if Prime Minister Boris Johnson — who survived a spell in hospital intensive care with COVID-19 — appears unperturbed.
Scientists have already voiced fears that the high underlying number of cases could overload the state-run National Health Service, which is often under pressure in autumn and winter from respiratory infections.
“We always knew the coming months could be challenging,” Johnson’s official spokesman told reporters on Monday.
Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said the rate of infections among older school-aged children “is clearly the driving force behind this sustained tide of new infections”.
Vaccination rates are low among schoolchildren in Britain, and masks are no longer mandatory, although the government said earlier this month that they could be reintroduced if cases continue to rise.
Infection rates in France, Germany and the Netherlands have also increased in recent days.
Britain has mainly used the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which was shown to be less effective at preventing infection from the Delta variant than the mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna predominantly used in Europe.
The country also began its vaccination program earlier, prompting questions about whether immunity is now waning, similar to Israel’s experience.
