New strain of coronavirus: what does it mean for you?

by

The new variant has a series of mutations, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

British experts are 'confident' that a new coronavirus variant is more contagious

Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, said on Saturday that the new strain “can spread faster” and was responsible for 60% of new infections in London.

On Monday, a World Health Organization epidemiologist said, “We hear it can spread up to 70% faster.”

“What they see is that the reproduction rate – so this is the number of individuals that an infected person sends to – has increased from 1.1 to 1.5,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical leader for Covid-19.

“I just want to put this increase to 70% in context.”

Van Kerkhove said it is not yet clear whether that increase is “related to the variant itself” or whether it is due to human behavior.

So far, “there is no evidence that this variant causes more serious illness or an increased risk of death,” the CDC said Tuesday.

But a strain that spreads faster can lead to more infections, which in turn can lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.

Where is this species now?

Outside the UK, this species has been found in countries such as Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia. A similar but distinct variant has also been found in South Africa.

As of Tuesday, the strain “has not been identified through sequencing efforts in the United States, although viruses have only been sequenced from about 51,000 of the 17 million cases in the US,” the CDC said.

Covid-19 is now on every continent as Antarctica records its first outbreak

“Given the small proportion of sequenced US infections, the variant could already be in the United States without being detected.”

Epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder said she thinks this strain is already in the US as it has been circulating in the UK for months before this recent wave.

Public Health England said backward tracing (using genetic evidence) indicates that the species first showed up in England in September. Then it circulated at very low levels until mid-November.

“Because this virus has been circulating in the UK for some time, the cat is out of the bag,” said Gounder. “It has spread elsewhere, including the United States.”

Who is most infected with this species?

“Most COVID-19 cases where this variant has been identified have occurred in people under the age of 60,” the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

Some children struggle with the coronavirus for months after infection

That can be problematic because “when people are asymptomatic, they are usually under the age of 60,” said Elizabeth Cohen, CNN’s Senior Medical Correspondent.

“So maybe that’s why this is spreading so quickly – or part of the reason – is that a lot of these people don’t show any symptoms, so they run around and spread it.”

Of course, people can be contagious for days before they develop symptoms. And some young people also have long-term effects from Covid-19.

Although severe Covid-19 disease is relatively rare in children, “there is a hint of that [the new strain] … has a greater tendency to infect children, ” says scientist Neil Ferguson, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) in the UK.

But he said more data is needed.

How do I protect myself from this new species?

What you can do to make Christmas celebrations safer

This new strain means “we have to work a little bit harder to prevent it from spreading,” said Van Kerkhove.

Gounder agreed. “What we really need to do is focus on the things that we know will prevent the spread of this new variant – which is the same thing that stops the spread of the coronavirus in general,” she said.

“Those are masks, social distancing.”

This is the difference between Covid-19 and coronavirus

Do vaccines work against this new strain?

Both the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine have demonstrated efficacy of approximately 95% in clinical studies. But now many are wondering if the vaccines would work on variants of the virus – like the one that’s spreading quickly in the UK.

Pfizer and Moderna said they are testing their vaccines to see if they work against the UK-based strain.

The new strain could mean more people need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said Tuesday.

“On the subject of herd immunity, there is always a 60% to 70% discussion,” said Sahin.

“But if the virus becomes more efficient at infecting humans, we may even need a high vaccination coverage to ensure normal life can continue without interruption.”

The new coronavirus has mutated before and both vaccines have worked against variations of the virus.

When can you get the vaccine?

“So far, I don’t think there is a single variant that would be resistant to the vaccine,” Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser for Operation Warp Speed, said Sunday.

“We can’t rule it out, but it’s not here now.”

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are looking into the variant and expect to know in the coming days if vaccines might not work against it.

How does this species affect travel?

At least 24 countries now ban passenger travel from the UK, including Canada, Russia, Chile, Italy, Iran and Sweden.
Why You Can Test Negative Yet Be Infected and Contagious With Covid-19

So far, there are no plans for the US to introduce a travel ban against the UK, US Deputy Secretary for Health Administration Brett Giroir said Monday.

British Airways, Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic have agreed to require passengers to be tested on Covid-19 before boarding planes from the UK to New York, said Governor Andrew Cuomo.

But some health experts say Americans shouldn’t travel anyway, as new Covid-19 hospital admissions and deaths are skyrocketing – and it’s easy to infect loved ones without realizing it.

“This is really not the time to travel,” said Gounder.

Zamira Rahim, Jamie Gumbrecht, Fred Pleitgen and CNN’s Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.

.Source