Published 18:44 IST, February 21st 2021
UK health secretary says cases of South African and Brazil variants falling
UK Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock said that number of people infected by the South African and Brazilian variant of COVID-19 in the UK was falling.
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British Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock has said that the number of people infected by the South African and Brazilian variant of COVID-19 in the UK was falling. Speaking to Sky News, Hancock pointed out that there was evidence to support that increased contact testing and stricter border measures were helping in curbing the spread of foreign coronavirus variants. Hancock has repeatedly advocated for blanketed measures as opposed to other parliamentarians who touted targeted border restrictions aimed at the high infectious country.
Meanwhile, the health secretary said that the country now had much stronger “vigilance in place” which allowed all incoming passengers to be tested and results to be sequenced. In addendum, the country also got a strong set of actions, including door to door testing, contact testing amongst other targeted specifically on areas where the new variant was found. While he said that the measures were working, he still warned people to be “vigilant”.
Meanwhile, the UK continues to grapple with the deadly pandemic and has reported a total of 4,105,675 cases and 120,365 fatalities till date. Hancock stressed that in case the new variants turn out to be resistant to vaccines, it serious risk for the vaccination programme.
UK variants spreading fast
Meanwhile, researchers have said that the UK variant of coronavirus, which emerged last December, has become 70 per cent more transmissible. According to the not-yet peer-reviewed journal, which is analysed after collaboration with 50 scientists stated that deadly variant may become the dominant strain by late March this year. The paper stated that the US labs are still sequencing only a small subset of coronavirus samples.
The report shared by the researchers read, "We found that the earliest timing of introductions into the U.S. ...the likely start of sustained local transmission in California of November 27, 2020. ... We found that the other U.S. clades had median [the most recent common ancestor] TMRCAs in December 2020 and January 2021, suggesting repeated introductions of B.1.1.7 into the U.S. from international locations from November 2020 through the present time." [Sic.]
18:44 IST, February 21st 2021