British strain affects higher proportion of young people: Report

LONDON • The new coronavirus variant that emerged in Britain is more transmissible and appears to affect a higher proportion of people aged under 20, said a report from Imperial College London and other science groups.

The mutation of concern has "a substantial transmission advantage" and is linked to "epidemic growth in nearly all areas", the scientists wrote. It can raise the virus' reproduction rate, which indicates how many people one patient infects, by as much as 0.7.

"This will make control more difficult and further accentuates the urgency of rolling out vaccination as quickly as possible," said Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London who has worked on modelling the outbreak.

Social distancing measures that worked against earlier strains of the virus were insufficient to control the spread of the new variant, the study found. The government had previously said the new strain was as much as 70 per cent more transmissible than other versions, without providing documentation.

The researchers used statistical tools to evaluate the link between transmission and frequency of the new variant across Britain. The data has informed the government's pandemic planning in recent weeks, Prof Ferguson said.

The researchers, however, noted that it is possible that the new variant appears to infect the young the most because the research was done when there were lockdowns but schools remained opened.

In the past week, the British variant has been discovered in several places.

China reported its first imported case of the British variant in a 23-year-old student who had returned from Britain. She was tested in Shanghai on Dec 14.

In Taiwan, the authorities have detected a second case of the variant found in Britain. The patient, a Taiwan resident in his 20s, returned from Britain on Dec 22 and had a fever and muscle ache four days later. He tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday.

The first such case in Taiwan had also been in Britain for study. The patient returned to Taiwan on Sunday. Both cases were identified after the epidemic control agency analysed samples of the Covid-19 virus from 21 patients who travelled from Europe and the United States and had a high level of virus.

In the US, the British variant has been reported in Florida, state health officials said on Thursday, making it the third known US state to identify such a case.

The Florida case involved a man in his 20s with no history of travel. Two other cases involving the British variant have been identified in Colorado and California.

The Florida Department of Health said: "The department is working with the CDC (US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) on this investigation."

The cases in Colorado and California, found in individuals who had not travelled recently, showed the likely community spread of the variant from person to person in the US.

Health experts have said they believe the new variant is more infectious but that recently approved vaccines should provide protection against it.

The British variant has also been reported in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, leading the authorities on Thursday to call for stepped-up measures to curb the spread.

The two cases there were detected by private diagnostic laboratory Dasa, which informed the state's Adolfo Lutz Institute and the Secretariat of Health Monitoring for further analysis.

Known as B117, the variant from Britain has been detected in 17 places other than Britain.

Meanwhile, France has reported its first case of the South African variant, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Believed to be more easily transmitted, the variant was found in a man who had returned from South Africa.

The 501.V2 variant was detected by the South African authorities in the middle of last month. Cases have since been found in Japan and Britain, among others.

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, XINHUA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE