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Patrick Vallance - New Covid variant confirmed in UK - but scientists don't know how infectious it is yet - dailystar.co.uk - Britain
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New Covid variant confirmed in UK - but scientists don't know how infectious it is yet
Covid strain has been found in the UK – but boffins say it’s too early to say exactly how transmissible it really is.Top scientists at the UK Health Security Agency warned they were studying the new XE variant.They say it is a mutation of the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains, meaning it is a “recombinant” as it is a combination of two other viral sources.But experts currently don’t know if it is more transmissible than previous strains that have previously wreaked havoc across the UK.There were 637 cases with the XE strain in England as of March 22, the health agency said.It means it would make up just a small fraction of cases reported with the latest data showing almost 70,000 people in England were positive for the virus on April 2.The health agency said initial growth rates showed that XE was not dissimilar from BA.2, according to Wales Online.It added: "As this estimate has not remained consistent as new data have been added, it cannot yet be interpreted as an estimate of growth advantage for the recombinant."Numbers were too small for the XE recombinant to be analysed by region.”Top government boffin Sir Patrick Vallance admitted the next Covid variant could be worse than Omicron.He said it would be a “mistake” to think the more the virus evolves, the less deadly it would become. Stay in the loop with all the latest news from the Daily Star by signing up to one of our free newsletters here. Although Covid cases may have peaked, there will be more hospitalisations and deaths to come from this current wave, Sir Patrick added.He told MPs that despite the vaccination programmes success at preventing deaths, it was not a "credible" strategy to give people booster jabs every four months.But it isn’t all doom and gloom for
Maria Van-Kerkhove - Stephen Griffin - Terrifying Covid variant warning as scientists spot new 'Delta-Omicron' hybrid - dailystar.co.uk - France - Netherlands - Denmark - city Paris - city Oxford
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Terrifying Covid variant warning as scientists spot new 'Delta-Omicron' hybrid
coronavirus that appears to be a hybrid of the Omicron and Delta variants.The worrying discovery comes after multiple false alarms over the last few months, with many preempting fears that the two hugely disruptive strains would combine to create the dreaded 'Deltacron'.Virologists from L’Institut Pasteur in Paris announced their findings after sequencing genomes in positive Covid samples taken from several regions across France.They now believe that the variant could have been circulating since early January. Commenting on the findings, Aris Katzourakis, a professor of evolution and genomics at the University of Oxford said: "This one is legit."“[It is] one to keep an eye on.”Other similar clusters are also said to have been found in Denmark and the Netherlands, but have not been confirmed yet.Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds, said that while the new variant "doesn’t seem to have taken off as a dominant strain yet", this may only be because of a "very slow start" based on the number of initial cases.But he added that "fact it persists in the fact of Omicron" could suggest that its ability to transmit "can’t be too shoddy".No conclusive data has yet shown whether Deltacron can be considered to be more infectious or deadly than its 'root' variants, Delta and Omicron.Covid technical lead Maria van Kerkhove from the World Health Organisation revaled on Thursday that her team had been “tracking and discussing” the new variant.
Chris Whitty - Next Covid variant could be worse than infectious Omicron, Chris Whitty warns - dailystar.co.uk
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Next Covid variant could be worse than infectious Omicron, Chris Whitty warns
Boris johnson today (February 21) said that the response to the pandemic would be "vaccine led" as he announced that all lockdown restrictions will be ending by Thursday. Speaking after he announced all remaining Covid restrictions will be axed, the PM said there "may be significant resurgences" and "it's very possible that those will be worse than Omicron".Whitty said at a Downing Street press conference that new strains were to be expected and while some "will just disappear" others could escape vaccines and result in a fresh wave in hospitalisations.Prof Whitty said: “Some of those new variants will just disappear, but some of them will cause us significant problems and they could be either more vaccine escaping but as severe as Omicron, but the net effect would be actually more people end up in hospital because a lot of our protection is from vaccination, or it could be more intrinsically severe, because Omicron came from a much earlier variant.”He added we “could certainly end up with something which is more likely to lead to hospitalisations than Omicron”, adding that winters are expected to be “tricky” even in the absence of significant new variants due to the combination of Covid, flu and other respiratory problems.The Chief Medical Officer also urged Brits who test positive for Covid to self-isolate, even though they will no longer be forced to do so under law.“As we look at the next weeks, we still have high rates of Omicron and I would urge people in terms of public health advice, and this is very much the Government’s position, that people should still if they have Covid try to prevent other people getting it and that means self-isolating," he said.
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