Here’s what we know about the new variant of coronavirus
I live in London, the epicentre of the new strain of the coronavirus – what is technically known as the Sars-CoV-2 lineage 1.1.7. In the “Guardian” newspaper today, there is an informative article by Sharon Peacock who is director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium and professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge.
She writes:
“Here’s what we need to look out for: whether the variant transmits between people more readily, whether it causes more (or less) severe disease, and whether it can evade our bodies’ immune response. There is currently no evidence that lineage 1.1.7 causes more severe disease or that it evades the immune system. There is also no reason to think that the vaccines being rolled out or under development will be less effective against it. But what does look increasingly likely is that this lineage is more transmissible.”