Last week, the alarm sounded about a new variant of the COVID-19 spreading rapidly across the UK. In an interview with CBS News yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained that VUI-202012/01 (the first variant under investigation in December 2020), is neither the first nor the last time the virus will mutate. In fact, there is another mutant strain of COVID spreading across South Africa that the CDC is currently monitoring. Keep reading – and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss out on these Clear signs that you’ve had the coronavirus.
The CDC is “Monitoring the Implication for the USA”
According CDC, the new variant, dubbed 501Y.V2, was discovered over the weekend and is not connected to the UK mutation. “On December 18, 2020, the South African government announced that it had also seen the emergence of a new strain in a scenario similar to that of the United Kingdom,” they wrote on their website. “The South African variant also has the N501Y mutation and several other mutations, but it came about completely independent of the UK strain and is not related to it.” According The Daily Mail, the CDC is currently “monitoring the implications for the US”
“Putting our data together with that of the United Kingdom, this [South African] variant is a little more effective in spreading from person to person and this is not good. This means that we have to improve a bit to prevent it, “said Dr. Richard Lessells, one of the experts who lead the research on the new variant in South Africa. The Guardian.
“Ours raises some more concerns for a vaccine [than the U.K. variant] … Another concern is reinfection. At the moment, we are doing careful and methodical work in the laboratory to answer all the questions we have and that takes time. “
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Dr. Fauci would not be surprised if the mutation was already here
Dr. Fauci also recognized the new mutation during an interview with PBS, noting that it was probably also in America. “When you see something that is quite common in a place like the UK – there are also mutations that we are seeing in South Africa – and considering travel around the world, I would not be surprised if you were already here,” he pointed out.
South Africa has recently experienced an outbreak of cases, which experts believe is due to the new strain. The country’s health minister, Zweli Mkhize, says the new variant appears to be associated with higher rates of serious illness in younger people.
The South African variant has also been identified in England, according to British health secretary Matt Hancock, and is asking anyone who has visited the country in the past two weeks to be quarantined. “This new variant is highly worrying because it is even more transmissible and appears to have undergone more mutation than the new variant that was discovered in the UK,” he said.
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How to survive this pandemic
As for you, follow Fauci’s fundamentals and help stop this wave, no matter where you live – use a face mask, social distance, avoid large crowds, do not go home with people you are not sheltering (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, be vaccinated when it is available to you and to protect your life and the lives of others, don’t visit any of these 35 places you’re most likely to reach COVID.