London to move into top tier of restrictions as UK identifies new Covid variant
London will be placed into England’s toughest tier of coronavirus restrictions from midnight on Wednesday morning following a rapid rise in Covid-19 infection rates.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday confirmed the move as he addressed lawmakers in the House of Commons. He said British authorities had identified a new variant of the virus that may be linked with the faster spread of cases in southeast England.
“Initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing variants,” Hancock said, adding that, so far, 1,000 cases of the new variant had been identified in England.
“There is currently nothing to suggest that this variant is more likely to cause serious disease, and the latest clinical advice is it’s highly unlikely this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine.”
Hancock said similar variants of the coronavirus had been identified in other countries in recent months and U.K. health authorities had notified the World Health Organization. Public health experts would continue to analyze the newly-identified variant of the virus in the U.K., Hancock said.
WHO says authorities investigating new COVID-19 variant in England
The World Health Organization is aware of a new variant of COVID-19 that has emerged in Britain, but there is no evidence the strain behaves differently to existing types of the virus, it said on Monday.
“We are aware of this genetic variant reported in 1,000 individuals in England,” the WHO’s top emergencies expert Mike Ryan told a news briefing in Geneva. “Authorities are looking at its significance. We have seen many variants, this virus evolves and changes over time.”
Reference: CNBC, Reuters, Worldometers
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