UK: Mystery person with Brazil variant traced, no sign of 'onward transmission'

In the United Kingdom, a mystery person infected with the Covid variant found in Brazil has now been traced. This comes after a total of six cases of the P.1 variant were found in the UK. However, the identity of one of those cases remained unknown. According to the reports by BBC, the person lives in Croydon and his contacts have been traced as well. 

As per UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the person stayed at home and has no sign of ‘onward transmission’. However, as a precautionary measure, local testing is still being rolled out. Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England said that she hopes that the vaccine will have a strong impact on the reduction of hospitalization and cases. 

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'Most likely place..'

This comes after the UK was declared as the most likely place in the world where a mutant strain of the coronavirus will occur due to the prevailing conditions. The junior health minister James Nicholas Bethell said, “If there's one place in the world where a mutant variation is likely to happen it will be in an area where you have a high infection rate and a large amount of suppression of the virus by either a lockdown or a vaccine programme”. He added that around the world that country would likely be Britain. 

He said, "If you look around the world that country is most likely to be Britain and we must be on the balls of our feet to be prepared for unhelpful news on that front." The health minister made this statement in response to the comments made by a top scientist who had warned the risk of a new variant against which there was no defence was "eventually likely to be inevitable". The health minister also talked about vaccination in the UK, "We are not post vaccine. We are at best mid vaccine - 20 million people is an enormous achievement but we have a long way to go”.

Read: UK Most Likely Place In The World For Mutant Coronavirus Variant

In the meantime, British scientists have identified and are investigating a new variant of the COVID-19 virus in the United Kingdom. According to BBC, so far 16 cases of the new coronavirus variant have been detected in the country, the first of which was identified on February 15. The new strain of the COVID-19 virus is being referred to as VUI-202102/04, where VUI stands for 'virus under investigation'. The new variant was reportedly designated VUI on February 24, about ten days after it was first found.

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