UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on Friday, warned about the new Coronavirus strain could be more deadly as well as more transmissible and that the country faces a long wait before it can emerge from lockdown. He also said that the new COVID-19 strain has a higher degree of mortality.
“In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant – the variant that was first identified in London and the South East – may be associated with a higher degree of mortality,” Johnson said from 10 Downing Street.
The warning comes as Britain grapples with the third and the worst wave of the Coronavirus with the highest death toll in Europe and battles to recover from the economic wreckage of its deepest recession in more than 300 years.
Chief government scientist Patrick Vallance said the new variant could be 30-40 per cent more deadly for some age groups, although he stressed the assessment relied on sparse data. Virus deaths have risen 16 per cent over the past week, while the number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 is approaching double the number seen during the worst days of the first wave of the pandemic in April.
There is no evidence that the vaccines being deployed in Britain are any less effective against the deadlier variant of the virus, Johnson said. But infection rates remain high, with on average, one in 35 people in London has the disease, and the figure is one in 55 nationally. Data published earlier on Friday showed that 5.38 million people had been given their first dose of a vaccine, with 409,855 receiving it in the past 24 hours, a record high so far.
