About this new variant....
a) it's not new - it's been around since September (and it didn't make much difference)
b) the conclusions about it spreading rapidly are based entirely on this: https://twitter.com/The_Soup_Dragon/status/1340349639946629120?s=20

The orange bars show the percentage of samples that were the new variant. Only they don't test all samples with sequencing so the figure is extrapolated from the 10% that get tested.

There is a bias in that only samples with a good quantity and quality DNA (from the viral RNA) will go on for sequencing.

However, that massive rise in the orange bars is simply not biologically plausible. The small rise up to the first week of November is.

This looks for all the world like laboratory artefact. Something went wrong in the lab causing a massive sudden rise in samples testing positive for the same thing.

At the same time there were stories of "asymptomatic outbreaks"; the new variant appeared in every corner of Wales simultaneously; the mortality rate plummeted and the samples became "difficult to sequence."

This all points to someone in the laboratory who has caught COVID19 and is shedding RNA over all the samples.

Sure enough an outbreak was diagnosed on Christmas Eve: https://twitter.com/Anne_Other1/status/1343119449679917056

As Julian Harris has repeatedly pointed out the way the lighthouse labs are being run is not safe. It is highly likely that the labs are full of viral aerosols. This is a risk for staff and presents a risk of cross contamination and false positive results. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54552620

Why haven't the government surrounded themselves with testing experts. Instead, they still have Ferguson advising on all this - now through 'NERVTAG'. He doesn't even have a biology O'level and cannot distinguish fantasy from biological plausible reality.