There are 25 variants of the coronavirus “on watch”, Public Health England’s director of COVID-19 strategic response told MPs.
Dr Susan Hopkins told the Science and Technology Committee: “We now live in a world of variants, so everything we see is a variation of the original.
She said eight COVID-19[female[feminine variants are “under investigation”, as well as which are being monitored.
“All of them have mutations that we are concerned about, but mutations alone are not enough to predict whether this will really impact our journey through vaccines and impact the risk of hospitalization for public health,” he said. she added.
Dr Hopkins explained how each variant that does not extinguish “very quickly” is going to have a “transmissibility advantage or an immune evasion advantage”.
She also told the committee that if the Delta (Indian) variant were “unmitigated”, allowed to spread without any lock restrictions, the R number could become “greater than five and maybe up to seven”.
The 25 variants under watch appear to be higher than the last technical briefing from Public Health England on June 11, which showed 13 variants under watch, eight under investigation and five variants of concern.
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-16 09:54:00
