Public health authorities are concerned that a new British variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is highly contagious. It does not appear to be more likely to kill people, but it seems between 56% and 70% more contagious. That makes it more likely to spread rapidly than older coronavirus strains.
Where Did the New British Variant Originate?
While the SARS-2 virus mutates, as all viruses do, it is not changing abnormally quickly. This new version, however, has a surprisingly large number of mutations. Scientists have dubbed it B.1.1.7. This variant first appeared in November, in Kent county in southeast England. It rapidly became the most common variant of the virus there and spread quickly to London and elsewhere in the UK. Researchers suspect that this variant may have evolved within a single immunocompromised patient. This unfortunate individual was sick with COVID-19 for more than 100 days while being treated for lymphoma (MedRxiv, Dec. 19, 2020).
Scientists have found that the new British variant has numerous mutations, leading to 17 different amino acid substitutions (Science, Dec. 23, 2020). One of these mutations doesn’t add or substitute amino acids, but actually deletes them from the spike protein. Laboratory studies indicate that this change makes the virus doubly infectious. primarily in the part of the gene that codes for the spike protein.
How Will the UK Respond?
As a result of this worrisome change, the government is calling for stricter lockdowns. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had hoped to avoid that over the Christmas holiday. However, infections in London doubled in just a week, with the highly transmissible new British variant accounting for more than 60 percent of cases. As a result, a number of neighboring countries have instituted temporary travel bans with the UK.
A group of British epidemiologists have modeled the behavior of this version of the coronavirus (CMMID Repository, Dec. 23, 2020). Their calculations are frightening, suggesting more infections in 2021 than in 2020. Consequently, they are suggesting that the government might want to keep schools closed until February and accelerate its anti-COVID-19 vaccination program as much as possible. Otherwise, they fear, many more people will become infected and some proportion of those will become seriously ill or even die.
