Officials from the World Health Organization held a newsletter Monday to investigate mutations in the coronavirus responsible for new species in both South Africa and the UK
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it new strain of the virus is spreading in the UK is said to be more contagious, but there is no evidence that it is more deadly. He said controlling the transmission of the coronavirus is key – the more likely the virus is to spread, the more likely it is to mutate.
The new strain of the virus in the UK has prompted dozens of countries in the European Union and around the world to close their borders to travelers out of the country, and for British officials to tighten restrictions on staying at home.
Epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical leader for coronavirus, said British researchers are looking at the transmission rates for the new strain and have seen an increase. Researchers are also looking into whether the variant leads to more serious cases of COVID-19 or more deaths, and haven’t seen any evidence so far, she said, as well as research on antibody response to the new strain.
While the coronavirus is nowhere near as contagious as the measles or mumps viruses, someone with the new British strain could infect an average of 1.5 other people, instead of the average of 1.1 for the earlier coronavirus strain. That means the virus can spread more quickly. British officials told WHO it may have been circulating as early as September.
Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergency Program, said there is no evidence that the variant will “change the value of vaccines in the future,” but in response to a question from Pamela Falk of CBS News on the press conference. , Ryan said, “This is being tested, but first of all you don’t know when to start.”
The new variant found in South Africa contains a similar mutation to the British strain, Van Kerkhove said, but is a separate variant.
Cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in the UK, limiting the expected relaxation of security measures before Christmas. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 67,700 people in that country have died from the virus. 24,691 died in South Africa.
Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 77 million people around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and nearly 1.7 million have died.