U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Friday that the coronavirus variant first discovered in India has the potential to derail the lockdown easing currently underway in the country.
The U.K. will now accelerate second doses of vaccines for the over-50s and the clinically vulnerable due to concerns about the variant from India.
Speaking at a news conference Friday, Johnson said the variant looked to be more transmissible than other strains, but cautioned that it wasn’t clear by how much. England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, speaking alongside Johnson, added that there’s “confidence” it’s “more transmissible” than the variants already circulating in the country.
Whitty said: “Earlier this week we said that we thought that it was as transmissible as B.1.1.7 and possibly even more so. There is now confidence that this variant is more transmissible than B.1.1.7.”
The B.1.1.7 variant, known as the U.K. or Kent strain, has an unusually high number of mutations and is associated with a more efficient and rapid transmission of the coronavirus. British scientists first detected this mutation in September of last year and by April it had become the dominant strain in the U.S.
