UK has been reporting over 3,000 Covid-19 cases over the past two days, which is the highest since April. A majority of these fresh cases are due to the coronavirus variant first found in India.
The B.1.617.2 coronavirus variant, which has caused large-scale devastation in India and was first detected in the country, is now responsible for a majority of the fresh Covid cases reported in Britain.
Britain has seen a total of nearly 7,000 Covid cases caused by the B.1.617.2 coronavirus variant of concern first identified in India, more than double the previous total, Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday.
The variant, named B.1.617, has been reported in at least 53 countries, raising global concerns.
Britain’s PHE has said that there are a total of 6,959 confirmed Covid-19 cases of the variant. This is a spike of 3,535 cases from the total reported last week.
According to BBC, this is the second day in a row that the number of fresh Covid cases has crossed 3,000, the first time since mid-April in the UK. Over 75% of the fresh Covid cases in UK are due to this variant of concern.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the predominant lineage of B.1.617 was first identified in India last December, although an earlier version was spotted in October 2020. The variant is being blamed for the massive second wave that led to India recording the highest spike in the world with over 4 lakh Covid cases in a day.
WHO and Britain have already classified B.1.617 as a “variant of concern”, along with variants first detected in Britain, Brazil and South Africa. Some initial studies have shown the variant prevalent in India spreads more easily.
Professor Paul Hunter of University of East Anglia has said the B.1.6.172, an offshoot variant of B.1.617, is now dominant in the UK, and there have been fears that its sudden rise could derail Britain’s exit from lockdown.
Paul has said, “Scientists including me have predicted previously that B.1.6.172 and other closely related variants could, because of the mutations they carry, be resistant to vaccines.”
“Public Health England (PHE) has therefore investigated the effectiveness of the leading vaccines against B16172. It has released a preprint an early piece of work yet to be reviewed by other scientists which suggests that the UK’s vaccines are still effective against B16172, just not as effective as they are against B117, the variant that was previously dominant in the UK,” the expert further said.
