What you need to know about UK’s more virulent coronavirus strain

<p style="font-weight: 400;">The more virulent coronavirus strain spreading rapidly in Britain was identified in southeastern England in September and has been circulating in the area ever since a WHO official told the BBC on Sunday.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Patrick Vallance, the British government’s chief scientific adviser, said that the strain “moves fast and is becoming the dominant variant,” causing over 60% of infections in London by December.</p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;">It is even more highly contagious spreading at a 70% faster rate than the known coronavirus strain.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The British government remains optimistic and said that the coronavirus vaccine is effective against the new strain.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"> “Virus mutate throughout seasons, most of the time they vanish or die themselves. Other time they exist without showing any symptoms. It’s only 0.01 per cent when they turn out to be dangerous,” says Dr. Kantroo, working in the healthcare sector in Maharashtra.</p>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;">“The virus evolves with the population, geographical and climatic conditions, it’s the reason why doctor prescribe a different medicine for the same ailment depending upon the temperature, season, and geographical condition. The new coronavirus strains which is causing alarm in South Africa, the UK, and the Netherlands seem to spread more easily. But, it’s too early to comment about the nature of the virus. It’s also unclear whether the virus poses any concern for vaccines or cause more severe disease,” Dr. Kantroo added.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Trevor Bedford, a biologist and genetics expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle over series of tweets said “We also now have direct serological evidence of antigenic drift, suggesting that reinfection by seasonal coronaviruses that occurs every 3 years is in part due to evolution of the virus.”</p>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">All this said, I'm not concerned that these variants will significantly reduce vaccine efficacy in the 2021 rollout. Most circulating SARS-CoV-2 viruses do not have any mutations in the spike receptor binding domain (<a href="https://t.co/TZt5BqhSzk">https://t.co/TZt5BqhSzk</a>). 15/18 <a href="https://t.co/NmgHrotaiJ">pic.twitter.com/NmgHrotaiJ</a></p>
— Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) <a href="https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1340410010598174721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<p style="font-weight: 400;">“Emerging evidence” suggests that may be starting to happen with the new coronavirus, the scientist tweeted: “Emerging variants should be assayed against sera from recovered and vaccinated individuals to test for antigenic effects.  Besides, immunization records should be connected to genomic surveillance to identify variants involved in breakthrough infections.”</p>.