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England’s top medical official announced on Saturday that the UK has identified a new variant of the coronavirus that “may spread more rapidly” than previous strains of the virus, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose new restrictions on parts of the country. to control its spread. .
“We are learning it as we go along, but we already know enough, more than enough, to be sure that we must act now,” Johnson said during a news conference on Saturday, where he set new restrictions in London and elsewhere. from England before the Christmas holidays.
“When the virus changes its method of attack, we must change our method of defense,” Johnson said.
The UK government announced the new strain of coronavirus on Monday following a spike in cases in the southern and eastern parts of England. As of Sunday, just over 1,100 cases of Covid-19 had been identified with the new variant, according to a statement from Public Health England.
Now, the new strain is believed to be up to 70% more transmissible than the original strain of the disease, Johnson said Saturday, adding that it appears to be driving the rapid spread of infections. Johnson called on residents to refrain from traveling and “stay local” to prevent the new strain from moving across the country and abroad.
The UK reports approximately 24,061 new Covid-19 cases every day, based on a weekly average, which is an increase of more than 40% compared to a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the University. Johns Hopkins.
“This is initial data and is subject to review, but it is the best that we have at the moment and we have to act on the information that we have because it is spreading very fast now,” Johnson said.
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, told the press conference that “viruses mutate all the time.” Seasonal influenza 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 spreads more easily, makes people sicker, and whether it changes the way someone’s immune system responds to the virus if they were already infected or vaccinated, Whitty said.
So far, a collection of evidence from genetic, frequency and laboratory studies suggests that the new strain “has a significant and substantial increase in transmissibility,” Whitty said. However, so far there is no evidence to suggest that the new strain causes a higher mortality rate.
Health officials believe the new variant first appeared in mid-September in London or Kent, and by mid-November it is believed to 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 last week suggests that the new variant has accounted for more than 60% of new cases, Whitty said.
“So what this tells us is that this new variant is not only moving fast, but increasing its transmission capacity, but it is becoming the dominant variant. It is outperforming all the others in terms of transmission,” he said. .
However, “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 to indicate that is the case so far, he said.
“Our working assumption at this time, from all scientists, is that the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus,” he said. “That obviously needs to be looked at in the future, and we need to be vigilant about it.”
The UK has alerted the World Health Organization and will continue to analyze data on the new strain.
