Holiday plans for millions of peo-
ple were thrown into doubt last
night as Boris Johnson introduced
measures to combat the Omicron
variant of the coronavirus after two
cases were confirmed in Britain.
The prime minister said the
restrictions, which include strict
travel rules, would be reviewed in
three weeks, at the start of the
school holidays. He told a Downing
Street press conference he was
confident this year’s celebrations
would be “considerably better
than last Christmas”, when fami-
lies were banned from mixing.
England is to rejoin Scotland,
NEWMAN’S
VIEW
1
Masks to be made compulsory again in shops and on public
transport2
Anyone coming into contact with someone infected with the
Omicron strain will have to self-isolate for ten days, regardless of
vaccination status3
Everyone travelling to the UK must take a PCR test two days after
arrival and self-isolate until they receive a negative result4
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has been
asked to consider extending booster vaccinations to those aged
18 to 395
Angola, Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia will be added to the
red listTHE NEW MEASURES
Wales and Northern Ireland this
week in requiring facemasks to be
worn in shops and on public trans-
port after it was confirmed that the
UK Health Security Agency had
detected cases of the variant in
Nottingham and in Brentwood,
Essex. The cases are linked and the
two people are self-isolating while
more tests and contact-tracing take
place.
Anyone who comes into contact
with someone infected with the
variant, which was first reported in
South Africa and is technically
known as B.1.1.529, will have to self-
isolate for ten days regardless of
vaccination status.
Travellers will be required to
take a PCR test two days afterarrival in the UK and to self-isolate
until they receive a negative result.
It is understood Scotland will
impose similar rules. The Welsh
government confirmed it would
introduce the same measures on
travel and said it had warned John-
son about relaxing the restrictions.
The Joint Committee on Vacci-
nation and Immunisation ( JCVI)
has been asked to consider extend-
ing booster jabs to those aged 18 to- At present only over-40s are eli-
gible for the third shot, which in
the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine is 95.6 per cent effective
against Covid-19. The JCVI has been
asked to consider reducing the gap
between second and third jabs
from six months to five.
Pfizer and BioNTech have said
they expect to have more data
about the efficacy of their vaccines
against the variant in two weeks.
Johnson said these “targeted
and proportionate” measures
were a precaution. “Our scientists
are learning more hour by hour,”
he added, “and it does appear that
Omicron spreads very rapidly, and
can be spread between people who
are double-vaccinated.
“There is also a very extensive
mutation that means it diverges
quite significantly from previous
configurations of the virus, and as a
result it might — at least in part —
reduce the protection of our vacci-
nes over time. We need to buy timeOmicron cases trigger return of masks and self-isolation
Caroline Wheeler
Political Editor
Continued on page 4→‘Mum, we must switch our phones off now. Pray for me’
At 8.35pm on Tuesday, Moham-
med Shekha, a 21-year-old shep-
herd originally from the Kurdish
region of Iran, sent his mother a
voice message from a freezing
migrant camp in France. He was
about to try to cross the Channel,
after the failure of a first attempt,
and wanted to reassure her.
“Mum,” he said, “we are leavingright now. He is saying we have to
switch our phones off. It’s not like
last time, OK? We are leaving, God
willing. Pray for me.”
His voice was quiet and
strained. In the background a man
was shouting. Shekha had told his
brother Marwan earlier that the
smugglers were not sure whether
they would attempt the crossing
that night. The weather, they said,
might be too bad.
They took the risk. On Tuesday
night at least 29 men and women —most of them Kurds from Iran and
Iraq — set off from a Dunkirk beach
on the long journey to England.
Only two survived. One was
Shekha. The story of how he
escaped the deadliest such disas-
ter in the Channel since data col-
lection began is one of grit, horror
and — it seems — chance. “It’s a mir-
acle,” Marwan, 18, said. “He can’t
swim at all. I don’t know how it
happened.”
Shekha’s story also shines a light
on how smugglers take advantageof men and women with aspira-
tions that outstrip their prospects
in places such as the Kurdish
regions of Iraq and Iran, where
corruption and repression can
make it seem impossible to
advance in life.
The family moved from Iran to
the Kurdistan regional governorate
in Iraq ten years ago, looking for
work. Even by the standards of the
town where they lived, they were
poor. Shekha, like the rest of his
family, is illiterate.But, despite his humble origins,
he had ambition. This year he and
his brother began to work secretly
together to find money to send
Shekha — the eldest of six siblings —
to the UK. They were desperate for
funds. His sister Fatima, 18,
needed an operation that doctors
told them would cost thousands of
dollars. Shekha knew how much
money it was possible to make in
the UK. Going there, despite the
outlay, was a sound investment
Continued on page 4→EXCLUSIVE
A survivor of the
Channel disaster
describes a terrifying
journey that left
dozens dead
Louise Callaghan
Middle East Correspondent
Stella Martanyy(7HA9F6*LNSTRN( |||+[!_'
INDEX
This week News 2
Weather News 39
Letters News 34
Sudoku News 38
TV & Radio Culture 45Christmas plans thrown into doubt
as new Covid variant arrives in UK
November 28, 2021 · Issue no 10,290 · thesundaytimes.co.uk £3 · only £2 to subscribers (based on 7 day Print Pack)
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