UK chief scientist says new COVID-19 variant may be more deadly
Posted January 22, 2021 3:47 pm.
Last Updated January 22, 2021 4:06 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There is some evidence that a new coronavirus variant first identified in southeast England carries a higher risk of death than the original strain, the British government’s chief scientific adviser said Friday – though he stressed that the data is uncertain.
Patrick Vallance told a news conference that “there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant.”
He said that for a man in his 60s with the original version of the virus, “the average risk is that for 1,000 people who got infected, roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die.”
“With the new variant, for 1,000 people infected, roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die,” he said.
But Vallance stressed that “the evidence is not yet strong” and more research is needed.
In contrast to that uncertainty, he said, there is growing confidence that the variant is more easily passed on than the original coronavirus strain. He said it appears to be between 30 percent and 70 percent more transmissible.
RELATED: Durham couple who caught COVID variant reportedly fighting health charges
Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19, said studies were underway to look at the transmission and severity of new virus variants.
She said so far “they haven’t seen an increase in severity” but that more transmission could lead to “an overburdened health care system” and thus more deaths.
The evidence for the new variant being more deadly is in a paper prepared by a group of scientists that advises the government on new respiratory viruses, based on several studies.
In Ontario, a doctor and her husband, the first people in Canada known to have caught the COVID-19 variant first detected in the UK, say they’re fighting public health charges that allege they lied about their contacts.
On Thursday, the province reported 15 cases of the COVID-19 variant first detected in the UK.
Health officials are now concerned about the community spread of the new strain as four of the confirmed cases have not travelled.
