Experts say it should be worded with caution on the British variant Covid

Several British experts on Saturday questioned the previous day’s information that a new variant of the coronavirus identified in Britain a few months ago could cause slightly more deaths than the previous version, writes the MTI. That information Boris johnson The prime minister gave it at a press conference in Downing Street on Friday night. At the same press conference Sir Patrick Vallance, the British government’s chief scientific adviser also explained in detail that “there is currently not very strong evidence” for all people infected with coronavirus that the new variant, in addition to being 30-70 percent more infectious than the old one, could lead to more deaths.

The Attorney General said, by way of example, that for men in their sixties, ten out of every thousand coronavirus patients are likely to die from infection with the original variant of the virus, and between 13 and 14 are likely to die. by infection with the new variant coronavirus. However, Sir Patrick also emphasized that there is a lot of uncertainty about these numbers, a lot of research is needed to find out if this is really the case.

The information was based on a study by Nervtag, an advisory body to the British government that focuses on investigating the dangers of respiratory viral infections, which suggested that the new variant of the coronavirus could have an increased risk of death. On Saturday, however, one of the study’s authors, Graham medley The professor also called it an open question in a statement to BBC radio whether the new variant of the virus was more life threatening than the previously identified version.

Mike tildesley, a member of the UK Government Reserve Scientific Advisory Board (SAGE) on epidemic models, also told BBC Radio on Saturday:

It was too early to draw strong conclusions from the study data to date, especially since the assumption of increased mortality is based on a relatively small data set.

Professor Tildesley said he finds it quite surprising that Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this assumption public, rather than waiting another week or two for experts to examine the data more closely.

Yvonne doyle, the Medical Director of Public Health England (PHE) said on Saturday’s BBC program that it is not yet entirely clear that the new variant of the coronavirus will cause more deaths than the previously known variant. According to Professor Doyle, there are some indications that may suggest this, but these are based on very early research, in a small number of cases, so it is “not too late” to make a statement.

Meanwhile, the latest UK data continues to show a steady and significant slowdown in the rate of spread of coronavirus infections. According to a report from the UK Department of Health on Saturday, 260,098 coronavirus infections have been tested across the UK in the past week. This is 79,858, 23.5 percent less than the number of new infections detected in the same period a week earlier. According to the Ministry, 5,861,351 nationwide have received the first dose of vaccination against the coronavirus and 468,616 people have received the second dose.