The variants of Covid-19, a new threat to the world in its fight against the pandemic

First modification: 01/16/2021 – 01:39

The transmission of three new variants of coronavirus has raised global alarms. In the US, scientists warn that that from the United Kingdom could be dominant in a couple of months in the North American country. For its part, the United Kingdom is shielding itself against a variant detected in the Amazon, which the Brazilian authorities fear is much more contagious than the previous one.

The pulse that the world is waging against the coronavirus pandemic has intensified. While the two million deaths from Covid-19 are exceeded globally, three new strains, potentially more contagious, circulate in different parts of the globe and more and more governments are redoubling measures in the face of the incessant growth of cases.

This January 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States, CDC for its acronym in English, indicated that the new variant found in the European country could become dominant in the North American nation by next March .

So far, the country has reported that 76 people have been infected with this new variant of the virus in the country, called B.1.1.7. and twice more contagious than the current version that circulates in the United States, although it has not been proven that it causes more serious symptoms than the previous one.

The CDC has expressed concern about the rapid spread of the new variant, already found in ten of the 50 states of the country and point out that it could put health services in check, for which they urge to redouble preventive measures such as social distancing and the use of masks.

“The increased transmissibility of the B.1.1.7 variant justifies the rigorous implementation of public health strategies to reduce transmission and decrease the potential impact of B.1.1.7, gaining critical time to increase vaccination coverage”, US health officials said.

The United Kingdom strengthens its measures to contain flights

The United Kingdom, one of the most affected countries in the world with more than three million verified cases and 87,448 deaths from the disease, has strengthened its border controls to deal with a new variant detected in the Brazilian Amazon and which worries the authorities of the Latin American country.

After blocking the arrivals of 15 Latin American countries to British territory on January 14, the United Kingdom imposed a new rule on Friday to prevent the new variant from entering the country. The new regulations oblige all travelers, regardless of their origin, to keep quarantine for ten days and to present a negative coronavirus test upon arrival.

FILE: A sign at British Airways counters at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, Mexico, on December 21, 2020. © Luis Cortes / Reuters

So far, travelers from some countries considered safe, such as Australia, did not require quarantine. But the Executive now seeks with these rules to contain the third wave of infections and avoid the hospital collapse in the country, which in the last day recorded record numbers of hospitalizations.

“What we do not want to see is all that hard work that is undone with the arrival of a new variant that destroys vaccines,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a press conference, indicating that these regulations, which will enter in force on Monday at 04:00, they will remain until at least February 15.

The discovery of the new variants has also instilled greater fear about the effectiveness that the different vaccines developed could present. This Friday, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, indicated that mutations in the virus could escape current vaccines, however, he pointed out that if so, the drugs will be able to adapt.

The Brazilian variant raises the alarms before the health collapse in Manaus

Meanwhile, the recent discovery of the variant in Brazil, apparently more contagious than the initial one, has created panic not only in the United Kingdom, which vetoed an entire continent to prevent its arrival, it is also making local authorities fear due to a strong increase in infections in the state of Amazonas, where it was initially detected.

Although it is still not possible to confirm that the increase in cases in the Amazon is related to the new variant, some regions of Brazil have begun to impose barriers on travelers from that territory, where deaths from Covid-19 have skyrocketed and more than 6,000 have already died from the virus.

Relatives of patients hospitalized or receiving home health care, mostly affected by Covid-19, gather to buy oxygen from a private company in Manaus, Brazil, on January 15, 2021. © Bruno Kelly / Reuters

In the midst of the outbreak, Manaus, the state capital, again fell into hospital collapse due to the impossibility of responding to serious patients. Health centers no longer have beds and even oxygen has been depleted, causing the death of several patients due to lack of oxygen.

In a situation of extreme emergency, the authorities have been forced to impose an 11-hour curfew a day while hundreds of patients are transferred to other Brazilian states, fearing that a new, more contagious strain will spread throughout the rest of the country. territory.

In the midst of the aggravation that the new variants of coronavirus bring to the world, the head of the Emergency Committee for Covid-19 of the World Health Organization, Didier Houssin, called for a rapid and intense study of the new variants. of the virus.

With Reuters and EFE

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source https://pledgetimes.com/the-variants-of-covid-19-a-new-threat-to-the-world-in-its-fight-against-the-pandemic/