Read on Twitter
Amazed that people can look at what's happening and think it would be an "own goal" if the transmissibility estimates turned out to be too high. It's what they should have been doing anyway. Cases in London & the SE surged. It doesn't matter if caused by the new strain or not! https://twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/1343856893899530240
It would admittedly be funny if the government had done the only semi-proactive thing it's done all year on false pretences, but ulimately it doesn't even matter than much. You need more restrictions because the cases are surging. No need to overcomplicate.
Imagine if we tightened restrictions to prevent a Winter surge of a deadly disease because a vaccine was literally weeks away from delivery to the most vulnerable people! So embarrassing!
Imagine: Govt told by its scientific advisers that there is a new strain of Covid, they believe it's much more transmissible and the govt decides to massively downplay it to avoid international reactions. We'd be in the 'coverups' section of the Wiki page with the Hubei CCP.