Coronavirus: what we know so far about the new mutation that has appeared in the United Kingdom

While the list of the countries What suspend their flights since andl United Kingdom continues to increase – today they joined Spain, Switzerland and Russia, among others -, the World Health Organization (WHO) tried to reassure and said it is important for everyone to recognize that these variations occur.

Since most infections with this new strain occur between under 60s (who are less likely to develop severe symptoms), it is not yet known whether it is associated with major mortalre. What we do know is that he could have up to 70% more transmissibility than other strains that there are today.

he Advisory Group on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats (Nervtag), which works with the British government since the start of the pandemic, it concluded at its last meeting that the new strain (VUI-202012/01) “Demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility over other variants.” In fact, in the South East England where they reported around 1000 cases, quickly becomes the dominant strain. Infections have also been reported in other countries such as Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

According to thl European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) by “the unusually high number of mutations in the spike protein and other genomic properties of the variant “It is excluded that the strain was the result of an accumulation of mutations in the UK. It is believed that the strain (including first registration date of September) I know I coulda are from a patient (probably with a weak immune system) who has lived with the virus for a long time and your body served as a platform for the mutation. Another possible explanation is that the strain grew in a virus sensitive animal (as in the case of let’s aim in denmark) and passed to humans.

Based on information received from the United Kingdom, the WHO insisted today that they had no evidence that the a new variant will make people sicker Or outside the deadliest that existing strains of Covid-19. “We have to find a balance. It is very important to have transparency, it is very important to raise awareness of things, but it is also important to make people understand that they are an integral part of the evolution of the virus.” WHO Emergency Officer Mike Ryan said. .

On the other hand, WHO Chief Scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said that vaccines developed against the coronavirus they should also be able to attack this new strain: “So far, although we have seen a number of changes, a number of mutations, none had a significant impact on the susceptibility of the virus to any of the treatments, drugs or vaccines currently in use and it is expected that this will continue to be the case ”.

In a TV interview, Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, the German laboratory that developed the vaccine with Pfizer, was convinced that his the vaccine would be effective against this new variant and said they would study the mutation “with some moderation”, trying to calm down in the face of the global alarm the strain has raised.