It is possible that the new variant appears to infect young people more because the research was carried out at a time when there were blockades, but schools remained open.
Photographer: OLI SCARFF / AFP via Getty Images
Photographer: OLI SCARFF / AFP via Getty Images
The new variant of coronavirus that appeared in the UK is more transmissible and appears to affect a greater proportion of people under the age of 20, according to a report by Imperial College London and other science groups.
The worrying mutation has “a substantial transmission advantage” and is linked to “epidemic growth in almost all areas,” the scientists wrote. This can increase the virus’s reproduction rate, which indicates how many people a patient infects by as much as 0.7, the researchers found.
“This will make control more difficult and further accentuate the urgency to implant vaccination as quickly as possible,” said Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial who worked on modeling the outbreak.
Social detachment measures that worked against previous strains of the virus were insufficient to control the spread of the new variant, the study found. The government had previously said that the new strain was up to 70% more transmissible than other versions, without providing documentation.
The researchers used statistical tools to assess the link between transmission and frequency of the new variant in the United Kingdom. The data informed the government’s pandemic planning in recent weeks, said Ferguson.
It is possible that the new variant appears to infect young people more because the research was carried out at a time when there were blockades, but schools remained open, the scientists said.