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Virologist Pedro Simas, from the Lisbon Institute of Molecular Medicine, considered this Sunday “unlikely” that the new strain of the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 has a “gigantic impact” on the vaccine. “You have to wait and be careful”, but “it is too early to be speculating on this.”
Regarding the fact that the new strain detected in the south-east of the United Kingdom is 70% more effective in spreading the virus, the expert argued that “If people wear a mask and respect the rules of distance, it doesn’t matter if the tension is more transmissible or not, because the measures work the same.”
According to Pedro Simas, this “is not a new phenomenon, it has happened during the pandemic several times, there are always new strains geographically located, but this, in a way, it is a good sign, it is a sign that it is not returning to more virulent strains, which cause more serious diseases ”.
“For now, there is no cause for concern, but we must be vigilant, because there is still no data on the influence and impact it will have on the vaccine, but it is unlikely to happen in a dramatic way,” he stressed.
The virologist also defended that “it is necessary to have certain prudence in the dissemination of this news” because “If, from the point of view of people’s health, these strains that appear are less virulent”, on the other hand “it is bad because the more infections there are, the more likely it is to infect risk groups that could develop serious diseases” .
“What we are trying to control is the number of infections, this variant is not causing more diseases,” he said, considering that the increase in restrictions in the areas of London and southeast England announced by the English government “has been adjusted.
The British prime minister announced on Saturday that London and the south-east of England will once again be confined, banning Christmas gatherings and ending non-essential trade to stop the spread of COVID-19 in both regions.
“It was not desirable for Portugal, at this time when we are in a stalemate with many daily infections, that we have a strain that increases the number of cases”said Pedro Simas, recalling that “the main disseminators of this virus are asymptomatic or mild, with few clinical signs.”
British authorities have already alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about the discovery of the new variant, which spreads more rapidly, although there is no evidence that it is more lethal or that it may impact the effectiveness of vaccines developed against the acovid-19. , although this point is still being evaluated “urgently for confirmation”.
The UK is included in the list of the 10 countries with the highest number of infections and deaths associated with the new coronavirus: more than 1.9 million cases, 66,541 deaths.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,685,785 deaths as a result of more than 76.2 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 6,063 people died from 366,952 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.
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