A New Coronavirus Strain Emerges

Sources are reporting the displacement of various strains by a strain of the virus that appears to have arisen in the last month or two. The New York Times writes:

LONDON — Alarmed by a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly reversed course on Saturday and imposed a wholesale lockdown on London and most of England’s southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households.

The decision, which Mr. Johnson announced after an emergency meeting of his cabinet, came after the government got new evidence of a variant first detected several weeks ago in southeast England, which the prime minister asserted was as much as 70 percent more transmissible than previous versions.

Viral mutations are not uncommon, and British officials said this variant had been detected in a handful of other countries, without naming them. But the government’s medical experts expressed alarm about its apparent infectiousness, noting that it now accounts for more than 60 percent of the new infections reported in London.

“This spread is happening at a moment in time when there are already many lineages circulating, and despite that it is displacing them all,” said Kristian Andersen, a geneticist at the Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif. “We can’t say for sure, but to me it looks like this very explosive growth is primarily because” of its new mutations.

“We normally see 20 to 30 lineages in our samples at a given time,” said Tulio de Oliveira, a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, in Durban, who first flagged the variant. “Now, we see only one.”

More research will be needed to confirm that the new strain is more infectious. So far, it does not appear to be more virulent or deadly. Also, it does not appear to be resistant to vaccines, but this will be closely monitored in the coming months. If  a second mutation arises that leaves the new strain more infections but also more virulent, that would probably ratchet up pressure to get populations vaccinated as soon as possible.

That leaves the question, can the president handle this or will he botch (incompetence) and/or sabotage (treason) the vaccination effort? Only time will tell.