South Korea reports first case of COVID-19 variant linked to rapid spread in UK

South Korea has reported first cases of COVID-19 variant linked to the drastic increase of coronavirus infections in the UK among three people who had entered the country from London on December 22, said the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on December 28. While the pandemic has continued to tighten its grip across the world even after more than a year it was first originated in China, the South Korean officials have reportedly pledged to ramp-up the efforts to launch a public COVID-19 vaccination programme. The officials are reportedly now analysing the genome from another family of four people who arrived from the UK and have tested positive for the disease.

"They arrived in the country as a family living in London and tests revealed the presence of the virus; they are now in quarantine," KDCA said.

Just last week, the new variant of the novel coronavirus has been flagged for spreading rapidly across the UK for now. Even though it is a well-known fact that viruses mutate all the time and some of them even die out, it is a very rare occasion when the new strains trigger dramatic changes. However, with over 1,000 cases of the variant discovered in the UK, scientists are puzzled to determine if the variant, reportedly named as VUI-202012/01 falls into which category or if it represents an increased health risk especially when some nations began administering the COVID-19 vaccines among people. 

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Why is the new COVID-19 variant causing worry?

Experts from both the United States and the UK indicated that the new strain appeared to infect more easily than the rest of the mutations that the coronavirus has shown through the months. However, there is not yet any evidence if the variant is more deadly. The British government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance reportedly said that the strain “moves fast and is becoming the dominant variant” causing over 70% of the infections in the country. 

The strain is concerning not only because it is rapidly spreading but it reportedly shows mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important and some of these mutations have already shown the experts that increase the ability of the pathogen to infect the host cells. 

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