Kent Covid strain to sweep world: Expert
LONDON: The coronavirus variant first found in the British region of Kent is a concern because it could undermine the protection given by vaccines against developing Covid-19, the head of the UK’S genetic surveillance programme said.
Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, also said the variant was dominant in the country and was likely “to sweep the world, in all probability”.
The coronavirus has killed 2.35 million people so far and a few new worrying variants out of thousands have raised fears that vaccines will need to be tweaked and people may require booster shots. Peacock said vaccines were so far effective against the variants in the UK, but that mutations could potentially undermine the shots.
“What’s concerning about this is that the 1.1.7. variant that we have had circulating for some weeks and months is beginning to mutate again and get new mutations which could affect the way that we handle the virus in terms of immunity and effectiveness of vaccines,” Peacock told the BBC.
“It’s concerning that the 1.1.7., which is more transmissible, which has swept the country, is now mutating to have this new mutation that could threaten vaccination.”
The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that a decline in overall virus cases conceals increasing numbers of outbreaks and community spread involving variants, with the strain first identified in South Africa late last year now identified in 19 countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said coronavirus mutations will likely become dominant across the country, threatening to derail progress made in containing the pandemic. The Irish government said about 22% of close contacts now catch the virus, double the rate in previous waves, suggesting the new variants are more infectious.
Former President Donald Trump’s disdain for science, coupled with cuts to health programme and agencies impeded the US response to the pandemic, a report in the UK medical journal The Lancet said. Scientists found that 40% of US deaths in 2020 from Covid-19 would have been avoided if the country’s death rate had been closer to that of its G7 peers.