'Faster-spreading' coronavirus variant found in 60 local authority areas, says Hancock

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A new coronavirus variant identified in 60 local authority areas may be driving faster infection rates in parts of England - but is likely to respond to a vaccine, the health secretary has told parliament.

Matt Hancock said that 1,000 cases of the new variant had been found in the last month - predominantly in south-east England, but spread across 60 different local authorities.

The health secretary revealed that 'similar variants' had been found in other European countries in recent months, and told MPs that the government had informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) of its presence in England.

He said there was 'nothing to suggest' that the new coronavirus variant would fail to respond to COVID vaccines - and urged the public to be 'vigilant and follow the rules' to prevent spreading the virus.

www.gponline.com

'Faster-spreading' coronavirus variant found in 60 local authority areas, says Hancock

A new coronavirus variant identified in 60 local authority areas may be driving faster infection rates in parts of England - but is likely to respond to a vaccine, the health secretary has told parliament.
www.gponline.com www.gponline.com

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Does that mean the current vaccines will not work for these new cases
 
COG-UK's post just now: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_i...ant-and-how-cog-uk-tracks-emerging-mutations/

The variant described today in the House of Commons contains a novel set of mutations associated with a lineage spreading rapidly in the South East of England (and more widely) that is the subject of ongoing investigations by the UK Public Health Agencies, coordinated by Public Health England and supported by COG-UK. This variant carries a set of mutations including an N501Y mutation in the receptor binding motif of the Spike protein that the virus uses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor.

Efforts are under way to confirm whether or not any of these mutations are contributing to increased transmission. There is currently no evidence that this variant (or any other studied to date) has any impact on disease severity, or that it will render vaccines less effective, although both questions require further studies performed at pace. We will provide further updates as our investigations proceed.
 
Eddy Edson said:
COG-UK's post just now: https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_i...ant-and-how-cog-uk-tracks-emerging-mutations/

The variant described today in the House of Commons contains a novel set of mutations associated with a lineage spreading rapidly in the South East of England (and more widely) that is the subject of ongoing investigations by the UK Public Health Agencies, coordinated by Public Health England and supported by COG-UK. This variant carries a set of mutations including an N501Y mutation in the receptor binding motif of the Spike protein that the virus uses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor.

Efforts are under way to confirm whether or not any of these mutations are contributing to increased transmission. There is currently no evidence that this variant (or any other studied to date) has any impact on disease severity, or that it will render vaccines less effective, although both questions require further studies performed at pace. We will provide further updates as our investigations proceed.
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Sky News here had a Epidemiological Virologist, on in the 6pm news slot, trying to ask her allsorts of questions on the mutation, and she said there had been no information on it published yet so she could not answer alot of the presenters questions, I felt sorry for her. Though the presenter was trying to push her for answers as if she was lying.
 
Virus is pulling the strings to stick around as long as possible, sooner masses vaccinated the better.
 
Our GP surgery is getting some, they've put that snippet on their website this very day. It's the 80+ ones who'll get it first, and obviously we don't have a clue how many of them there are locally.
 
Apparently we have the variant here.
I hope these vaccines are effective against it.
 
As in Bruce's post above, an excellent person to follow for this stuff is
https://twitter.com/x/status/1338792628570173440

Maybe a little bit interesting: her chart shows this "new" S:N501 strain starting to climb in Oz from mid-Nov. The most notable thing about that timing is that it aligns with the little outbreak in SA, the only significant recent event. At the time, health authorities here talked of a "new strain" with much faster transmission than they'd seen before - the main outbreak was in a big multi-generation family lviing together, infected 90%+ of them within a couple days; and a couple of other people seemed to have caught it from very brief casual contacts.

They were ridiculed for the "new sneaky strain" claims by many experts, just like Hancock is being ridiculed now, but wh knows ...
 
It doesn’t really matter if this new variant is easier to catch. What matters is whether the death rate increases, not just the case rate. And if the tests for Covid 19 register this new variant, then the vaccines are quite likely to work.

I suspect that this virus will keep changing till it becomes like all the other coronaviruses that give us colds, then we can all stop worrying and and start sneezing.
 
mikeyB said:
I suspect that this virus will keep changing till it becomes like all the other coronaviruses that give us colds, then we can all stop worrying and and start sneezing.
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As I understand it that's what we expect for very dangerous viruses (and parasites): there's strong selection pressure against killing your hosts.

I don't think there's such pressure on this virus (it's spreading just fine while killing about 1% of those it infects), so we'd have to hope that becoming easier to spread also happens to cause it to be less dangerous.
 
well thanks to the dam gov and those working for it blabbing out loud we can now thank them for the country been virtually blocked by other countries. seem strange that when this first started from China nobody shut them out.

they knew about this variant 3 months ago and only now blabbed big time and look at the result.
 
It has become more and more blatantly obvious that the government front benches are addressing only one audience and that is their back benches. As far as they are concerned, the broader implications of some of the guff they come out with is just collateral damage in their quest for survival.
 
The “spike” is common to coronaviruses, it’s the way they push their RNA into cells. The vaccines are targeting the spike, and I doubt that any gene variation will affect the spike. No spike, no infection.
 
mikeyB said:
It doesn’t really matter if this new variant is easier to catch. What matters is whether the death rate increases, not just the case rate. And if the tests for Covid 19 register this new variant, then the vaccines are quite likely to work.

I suspect that this virus will keep changing till it becomes like all the other coronaviruses that give us colds, then we can all stop worrying and and start sneezing.
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I am not sure that i agree. It is not just the death rate. For one treatment has improved. So in truth more people catching the virus increases the numbers in hospitals. There are just not the staff in hospitals to cope. Plus staff in hospitals are still catching the virus and that means they are struggling.
 
Guess whole country will be in tier 4 after new year, beast needs controlled & cant get vaccine out fast enough.
 
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