England’s top medical officer announced on Saturday that the UK has identified a new variant of the coronavirus that can “spread faster” than previous strains of the virus, leading Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose new restrictions on parts of the country to prevent its spread. to control. .
“We’re learning about it along the way, but we already know enough, more than enough, to make sure we need to take action now,” Johnson said at a press conference on Saturday, where he imposed new restrictions on London and other parts. of England prior to the Christmas holidays.
“If the virus changes its attack method, we have to change our defense method,” Johnson said.
The British government announced the new strain of coronavirus on Monday after an increase in the number of cases in the south and east of England. Just over 1,100 cases of Covid-19 with the new variant had been identified on Sunday, according to a statement from Public Health England.
Now it is thought that the new strain could be up to 70% more transmissible than the original strain of the disease, Johnson said Saturday, adding that it appears to be causing the rapid spread of infections. Johnson urged residents not to travel and “stay local” to prevent the new species from moving across the country and abroad.
The United Kingdom reports about 24,061 new Covid-19 cases each day, based on a weekly average, which is an increase of more than 40% from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
“This is early data, and it is subject to revision, but it is the best we have right now and we have to act on the information as we have it because it is spreading very quickly now,” Johnson said.
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said at the press conference that “viruses are constantly mutating.” Seasonal flu mutates every year and other new variants of the coronavirus have already been identified in countries like Spain, according to Public Health England.
What needs to be answered is whether the new strain is more easily transmitted, makes people sicker, and whether it changes the way a person’s immune system responds to the virus when they’re already infected or vaccinated, Whitty said.
So far, a body of evidence from genetic, frequency and laboratory studies suggests that the new strain “has a significant, substantial increase in transmittability,” Whitty said. However, there is no evidence to date to suggest that the new strain causes a higher death rate.
Health officials believe the new variant first appeared in London or Kent in mid-September, and by mid-November it would have caused about 28% of cases in London and other parts of South East England, Whitty said.
Now those numbers are much higher, he said. In London, data from the past week suggests the new variant is responsible for more than 60% of new cases, Whitty said.
“So what this tells us is that this new variant is not only moving fast, it is also better able to transmit, but it will become the dominant variant. It beats all others in terms of transmission,” he said.
Still, there is “no evidence” that it causes more serious illness, more hospitalizations, or “more problems than the other virus,” Whitty said. While there are reasons to suspect that the new variant could alter a person’s immune response to the disease, there is nothing so far to indicate that this is the case, he said.
“Our current assumption by all scientists is that the vaccine response must be sufficient for this virus,” he said. “That clearly needs to be looked at in the future, and we have to remain vigilant about this.”
The UK has alerted the World Health Organization and will continue to analyze data on the new strain.