Britain has issued stricter restrictions during the holiday season, with officials saying a new, more infectious strain of coronavirus is spreading rapidly in the south-east of England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new strain is up to 70% more transmissible than other variants, accounting for more than 62% of COVID-19 infections in London.
So what do we know about this new strain that is prompting British officials to take more drastic measures to limit the spread of COVID-19?
When did officials first report the new strain of coronavirus?
UK Health Minister Matt Hancock has announced for the first time that there is a new variant of coronavirus (a mutated version of the virus) in London and south-east England on December 14 in the House of Commons.
“The initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing ones,” Hancock warned, saying it could be responsible for the rapid rise in cases in the south-east of England, which officials would confirm later in the week.
Hancock said more than 1,000 cases had been identified in 60 different areas of local government.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical director for COVID-19, said on Monday that “so far we have no evidence that this variant is behaving differently,” but British officials said on Saturday that it was more transmissible, a reflection scientists are quickly learning about the virus.
“We are aware of this genetic variant reported in 1,000 individuals in England,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the WHO emergency program. “This special variant seems to have become more widespread in the UK,” he added on Monday.
“This type of evolution or mutations like this are actually quite common,” said Dr. Ryan, who added that there are several questions about significant variations. He said that British officials are very transparent and have already shared the genome sequence of the variant.
“This is a variant, N501Y, which is actually already being monitored by our working group on the evolution of the virus. It appeared in the context of a mink variant identified elsewhere,” Van Kerkhove said Monday.
That N501Y is just one of the changes to this variant in the UK, according to a study of the variant’s genome published on Saturday.
Hancock said he did not think the coronavirus strain would be able to respond to a vaccine.
What are the changes in this coronavirus strain?
Sir Patrick Vallance, Britain’s scientific adviser, said on Saturday that the new variant had 23 changes, “many of them associated with changes in the proteins that the virus makes”.
“This is an unusually large number of variants. There are also variants in areas of the virus that are known to be associated with how the virus binds to cells and enters cells,” Vallance said. “So there are some changes that cause concern about the appearance of the virus.”
He said studies and analyzes have shown that the strain is more transmissible, which means it spreads faster.
This variant first appeared in September, and by November it was responsible for 28% of COVID-19 cases in London. As of the week of December 9, more than 62% of COVID-19 cases in London come from this new variant, officials said.
“So what this tells us is that this new variant not only moves fast, but increases in terms of its ability to transmit, but becomes the dominant option. It beats the others in terms of transmission,” he said. said Vallance.
Officials said that due to its higher transmissibility, the variant would increase the country’s reproductive number – the R number – which is the average number of secondary infections from a single infected person.
This number is currently between 1.1 and 1.2 in England, which means that “on average, every 10 infected people will infect between 11 and 12 other people,” says the British government.
That number could increase by 0.4 due to the new variant, officials said on Saturday, which means the epidemic will spread much faster. Any number R over one means that the epidemic is growing.
Does this new variant cause more severe diseases?
British officials say they do not believe the new variant will cause more severe disease or more deaths, but it is spreading faster, which could cause major problems for the number of infections.
“There is no current evidence to suggest that the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is being done to confirm this,” said Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief physician. a statement issued on Saturday.
Vallance added on Saturday that there is no evidence that this variant causes more hospitalizations, but that for now it is a matter of transmission.
“This virus is spreading more easily and therefore more measures are needed to keep it under control,” he added.