The coronavirus variant first found in the British region of Kent is a concern because it is mutating and so could undermine the protection given by vaccines against developing COVID-19, the head of the UK’s genetic surveillance programme said.
The coronavirus has killed 2.35 million people and turned normal life upside down for billions, but a few new worrying variants out of thousands have raised fears that vaccines will need to be tweaked and people may require booster shots.
Sharon Peacock, director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium, said vaccines were so far effective against the variants in the United Kingdom, but that mutations could potentially undermine the shots.
That new mutation, first identified in Bristol in southwest England, has been designated a “Variant of Concern”, by the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group.
Britain’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said the Bristol variant had one of the same mutations as the South African. “It is not surprising that it has happened and it will happen elsewhere as well,” he said on Wednesday.
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The British variant, which is more infectious but not necessarily more deadly than others, was likely “to sweep the world”, Peacock said.
The two COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca protect against the main British variant.