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On July 20, three days before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, a case of the SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant was reported at an airport in Japan. This is classified as a variant of interest, and although little is known about it because it is relatively new, Lambda is believed to be more transmissible and may even be more resistant to vaccines – although the research is widely divided.
However, despite the concern, Japan has reported the case in an unusual way. Usually, when these variants are first discovered in a new country, the information is quickly made public. In this case, for unknown reasons, the information was not disclosed to the mainstream media and was only made public recently – nearly three weeks after detection.
The report was discovered in the GISAID variant tracking records, which track COVID-19 variants and their prevalence in each country, by The Daily Beast. On July 20, a GISAID report appeared to show Lambda entered Japan, presumably through an individual from Peru. The case has been identified and the passenger has entered quarantine at the airport, and officials do not believe the variant has reached others in Japan.
As to why the information was not made public, it remains a mystery. Some believe it was to protect the Olympics from being canceled, as an anonymous employee of the Japan National Institute of Infectious Diseases said who spoke to the Daily Beast:
“I am not authorized to speak officially, but to my knowledge the variant has been detected at an airport checkpoint and has not been in the wild”,
According to this source, this information would generally be made directly public – but not this time.
“There was a consensus at the Ministry of Health that this information would be better reported after the end of the Olympics. Whether it’s because they thought it would be best to educate the public when the news cycle slows down or whether it could be tangentially associated with the Olympics, which is embarrassing, I don’t know. not.
Lambda was first reported in Peru in August 2020. Carrying new mutations that seem to make it more transmissible, it has now been observed in 35 countries, remaining the most widespread in South America. It would be less of a concern than the Delta variant, which has seen a sharp increase in incidence across the world as it gains dominance through increased transmissibility. While Lambda mutations suggest it may exhibit higher resistance to current mRNA vaccines, data remains unclear on how vaccines can protect against the variant.
After its introduction in Japan a few weeks ago, authorities announced Lambda’s case in the country on Friday, but maintain it has not spread further than the one isolated case at the airport.
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