What we know about the new COVID strain

More countries closed their borders to Britain on Monday over fears of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, heightening global panic, causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of U.K. food shortages just days before the Brexit cliff edge.

India, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Jordan and Hong Kong suspended travel for Britons after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned a mutated variant of the virus, up to 70-per-cent more transmissible, had been identified in the country.

Several other nations blocked travel from Britain over the weekend, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland and Belgium — although experts said the strain may already be circulating in countries with less advanced detection methods than the U.K.

Here's what we know so far about the new strain:

The new strain is suspected to be more infectious

The main worry is that the variant is significantly more transmissible than the original strain. It has 23 mutations in its genetic code — a relatively high number of changes — and some of these are affecting its ability to spread.

The new variant shares a critical mutation with a lineage that is exploding in transmission in South Africa — it now accounts for 80 to 90 per cent of the country's new infections.

While the new variant was first seen in Britain in September, by the week of Dec. 9 in London, 62 per cent of COVID-19 cases were due to the new variant. That compared to 28 per cent of cases three weeks earlier. A few cases of the new variant have been reported by Iceland and Denmark..

It's not more deadly

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Sunday the new strain will not decelerate vaccine efforts. “Right now, we have no indications that it is going to hurt our ability to continue vaccinating people or that it is any more dangerous or deadly than the strains that are currently out there and that we know about,” Adams said.

Vaccines still expected to work

Doctors at the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are researching how effective the current vaccines will be on the new strain. Though there is a worry the vaccines won't work on a significantly mutated virus, the doctors still expect vaccines to be effective.