South African strain is not here yet, say health chiefs

THE South African variant of Covid-19 is yet to arrive in Nottinghamshire, health bosses have confirmed – but it is “likely” other variants could arise in the coming months.

The new variant, officially known as 501Y.V2, was first identified in South Africa on December 18 and appears to spread more rapidly, according to World Health Organisation (WHO).

Nottinghamshire’s director of public health, Jonathan Gribbin, said he could “happily” confirm no people in the county have so far been infected.

Mr Gribbin added: “If we go back two or three weeks ago, if we were talking about a new variant at that point, we would have been talking about what was commonly known as the Kent variant at that time.

“Of course the emergence of what people are popularly referring to as the South African variant in the first place underlines that over the course of this pandemic we can expect to see new variants emerging and arising.

“It’s really important we have got the right arrangements in place to deal with those. The information that we have around the SA variant at the moment is there were 100 confirmed cases across England and I think there are a suspicion of a further 30 or 40 cases which have not yet been confirmed.

“As things stand at the moment, none of those cases are in Nottinghamshire and I think it would be right to say that sooner or later we are likely to find occurrences of that variant elsewhere.

“Whether that is in Nottinghamshire or elsewhere I do not know, but I think it is likely that in the months to come that we might find a new variant in due course arriving in the city or county.

“My teams have been working in the last week to put in place some preparatory arrangements which shadow those put in place where the South African variant has been identified already.”

There is no evidence to suggest the new strain is more deadly and most vaccines appear to work.

Mr Gribbin added: “If we receive information that it has arrived in Nottinghamshire then we will be ready.”