England identifies a new strain of coronavirus

London – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held emergency talks with his cabinet on Saturday to discuss strategies to slow the spread of COVID-19, after government scientific advisers said a new variant of coronavirus is accelerating the spread of infections.

A government advisory group on coronavirus believes the new strain could spread more quickly, said England Medical Director Chris Whitty, citing preliminary modeling data and rising incidence rates in the south of England.

He added that there is no current evidence that the new strain, which the UK public health agency has identified through genomic monitoring, is more lethal or that it is circumventing current vaccines and treatments.

“We have alerted the World Health Organization and are continuing to analyze the available data to improve our understanding,” Whitty said in a statement.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for COVID-19, told reporters this week that the UN health agency “We had no evidence that this variant behaves differently” and that it was similar to a strain originally reported in mink in Europe. He said scientists will study the strain of the virus to see if there could be a difference in how it causes an immune response in humans.

Boris Johnson is expected to announce changes to the current infection prevention restrictions during a press conference on Saturday.