A new strain of coronavirus is sweeping across southern England, spurring heightened restrictions in the country and flight bans within Europe and globally. The United Kingdom has said that a fast-moving new variant of the virus may be 70% more transmissible than existing strains, and appears to be driving the rapid spread of new infections in London and southern England.
On Monday, India joined several other countries in banning flights to and from the United Kingdom from December 22 to December 31 in hopes of curbing the spread of the new strain. Also read: India suspends flights to and from UK amid mutant coronavirus spread
So what do we know about the new virus mutation?
A statement from the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said that early analysis suggests the new variant could increase R by 0.4 or greater. Although there is considerable uncertainty, it may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old variant.
However, "there's no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness," or that vaccines would be less effective against it, he said.
"It is really too early to tell but from what we see so far it is growing very quickly, it is growing faster than [a previous variant] ever grew, but it is important to keep an eye on this," said Dr Erik Volz from Imperial College London.
Britain has alerted the World Health Organization that the new strain — identified last week — is the likely cause of the surge in infections, accounting for around 60% of London's cases.
Just over 1,100 COVID-19 cases with the new variant had been identified as of Sunday, according to a statement from Public Health England. The variant can be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, the South East and eastern England. Cases elsewhere in the country do not seem to have shot up in a similar way so far. The strain was also detected in South Africa last week.
Virus mutations are not unusual, and scientists have already found thousands of different mutations among coronavirus samples. However, the majority of these mutations have no effect on how easily the virus spreads or the severity of the symptoms.
When the UK's new strain was first detected last week, health officials were debating whether the rapid spread of the virus was due to widespread carelessness or the contagiousness of the strain itself. After further investigation, scientists found that the new strain is, in fact, significantly more transmissible.
However, they don't believe the variant leads to an increase in cases of severe illness or more serious side effects.
Researchers are still evaluating whether the strain will be more or less receptive to the vaccines currently being rolled out. No formal conclusions have been made, although health authorities have said it is unlikely that the mutation would hinder the vaccines' effectiveness.
Richard Neher of the University of Basel's Biozentrum in Switzerland has said vaccines generate an immune response against several virus characteristics at the same time. Therefore, even if one of those characteristics changes, the immune system would still be able to recognise the pathogen and protect the vaccine recipient.
"I don't see any reason for alarm at the moment," Neher told the dpa news agency, adding that it was still necessary to monitor further developments.
Last month, millions of mink were discovered to be carrying a variant of COVID-19. In October, researchers also found evidence that a coronavirus variant had originated in Spain and spread through Europe. However, neither of the strains were found to increase the spread of the disease.
(With inputs from DW, PTI)