A new strain of COVID-19, is it more sinister?
COVID-19 incidence overall has been declining in certain countries including India. But, on the other hand, several countries in Europe and the USA have seen a second spike in the disease. In certain countries, this second wave has been as damaging as the first one.
In this chaotic world of COVID-19, 20th December will be remembered as a black day. This was the day when UK prime minister Mr. Boris Johnson for the first time informed the public that a new strain of COVID-19 has been found in the UK. He also informed that it appears this virus has more infectivity that means it can spread faster than the previous strain.
With this news, panic gripped the whole world. Countries started suspending all flight operations to and from the UK. India also stopped flight operations between India and UK till 31st December 2020.
It also affected the financial market world over and the Indian Sensex plunged 1407 points, which is the biggest single-day fall since April 2020. That amounts to the loss of Rs. 6.6 trillion of investor's money.
A king’s college London study has found that there could be six different types of COVID-19 virus. Each with a unique cluster of symptoms.
The new strain of virus may have been there in the UK for the last few months which U.K. scientists have named "VUI - 202012/01" includes a genetic mutation in the "spike" protein, which — in theory — could result in COVID-19 spreading more easily between people.
As of today, scientists believe that the present vaccine will be effective against this strain of the virus as well. And there is no evidence so far that this new strain causes more severe disease.
So far there is no conclusive evidence that a new strain has entered India but the government has been cautious and the scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB) have decided to take up the genome sequencing of samples collected from various parts of the country to check if they find any evidence of new strain in India.
Dr. Rakesh Rai. MS, FRCS, MD, CCT, ASTS fellow.