Newsman: A New variant of the coronavirus now jeopardize the world again as it leading towards a new restrictions and shutdown in Europe at the moment. UK Health officials say this variant is 75 percent more infectious than the current coronavirus. The United Kingdom, the source of the new coronavirus strain already got travel ban with 20 countries including Ireland, Canada, Russia and India but not the United States. Four countries have been primarily detected with this new variant of the virus. This new variant of coronavirus has created havoc just after a week the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the covid-19 restrictions is likely to be eased during the Christmas holyday. Today the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to hold the emergency meeting on the latest situation
The variant was first detected in the United Kingdom in mid-September, according to the World Health Organization. Its mutations have occurred on the genetic material that controls the spike protein, which allows COVID and other similar viruses to penetrate host cells, causing infection. In October 2020 from a sample taken the in previous month and it quickly began to spread by mid-December. It is correlated with a significant increase in the rate of COVID-19 infection in England; this increase is thought to be at least partly because of mutation N501Y inside the spike glycoprotein‘s receptor-binding domain, which is needed for binding to ACE2 in human cells.
Though governments around the world are racing to prevent the spread of the recently identified Covid-19 strain, that already appears to have happened with it being detected in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Iceland. Scientists in South Africa have detected a strain that shares one of the mutations of the British coronavirus in up to 90 percent of samples that have been genetically sequenced since mid-November. Evidence suggests that the two variations have arisen separately, according to molecular epidemiologist Emma Hodcroft-The US-British molecular epidemiologist, based at the University of Bern. Though the variant has not been connected to more severe cases, it is associated with higher viral loads in swab tests, meaning that it is also more transmissable.
The American scientists are now in research to find out whether the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine will be effective to protect people from this new variant of coronavirus. Experts including the officials of operation war speed say, it would be taking couple of days more to know the vaccine effectiveness against the new variant coronavirus. But they are almost sanguinely optimistic that current vaccines against covid-19 will work against this new variant as the vaccine has been made to build immune system against multiple mutations. Scientists have been tracking minor changes in the COVID-19 genetic code since the beginning of the pandemic, and at least 1,000 variants have been detected so far. But the change to the spike protein found in southeast England represents one of the first coronavirus mutations that have made it more infectious.
On Sunday, the Netherlands and Belgium were the first nations to suspend air travel from the United Kingdom. They were soon joined by Austria, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Israel, while the French ban also appears to apply to travel over the English Channel as well. On Monday, the European Union will meet to discuss a coordinated effort. This morning Saudi Arabia came on the list as closed border with United Kingdom.
The border closure exacerbated pre-Christmas delays, with trucks backed up from the port of Dover in the southeast of England, a key crossing point for hauliers. The timing of the restrictions, just days before Christmas and the end of the Brexit transition period, raised concerns about food and medicine shortages in the UK at a critical time.
Before Boris Johnson announced the new restrictions on Saturday, the United States already blocked travel for most non-U.S. citizen who had recently been to the U.K., Ireland, Brazil, and 26 other European nations.
