England's new Covid variant: should we be worried?

Dr Zania Stamataki sets out the key factors … and says there is no need to panic * Coronavirus – latest updates * See all our coronavirus coverage Public Health England has studied the genetic sequence of the virus and notified the WHO, which is looking into the spread pathway of the new strain in more detail. How dangerous is this new variant and what does this mean for the new vaccines that are rolled out this month? The virus that causes Covid-19, like other coronaviruses of the same family, is an RNA virus with a mutation rate of nearly one mutation a month. This is not sufficient to generate new viral strains, but as time passes and mutations accumulate, particularly when populations don’t travel as much from continent to continent, different viral strains will emerge in different places around the world. Continue reading...
http://dlvr.it/Rnf0KL