Britain reverted into a third lockdown period on December 30, 2020, after the Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the decision on account that the new variant of the coronavirus was putting a strain in the health sector.

According to the Worldometers.info, the Covid-19 global caseload had shot to 87.6 million by Thursday, January 7, 2020. Deaths stood at 1.89 million while recoveries stood at 63 million at the time.

But at a time that the world is licking wounds inflicted by Covid-19, and various economies rising from the ruins of the slump triggered by the pandemic; another challenge comes at the door-the new strain of the virus.

The new strain that has been reported in South Africa and Britain comes with grim shade of expectations as some scientists believe that the classes of the Covid-19 vaccine being injected into the market may lack the efficacy to tame it.

The City Review looks at the known facts about the new strain of the coronavirus that presents a new twist and a headache in combating the pandemic. Reuters reported that 34 countries had noted the strain of Covid-19 within their borders as of December 30, 2020.

Cases so far

Australia noted the new variant in two travellers from the USA.

Austria noted four cases with strains said to have originated from mutations detected in Africa and Brazil. Canada and Brazil each confirmed two cases of the new variant earlier detected in Britain. Cyprus discovered 12 cases of the new variant from British soil. The other countries include Chile (1), Denmark (800), Finland (2), France (12, Germany (1), Greece (4), Hong Kong (2), India (38), Iran (1), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (1), Japan (1), Jordan (2), Lebanon (1), Norway (23), Oman (1), Pakistan (1), Portugal (1), Singapore (1), South Korea (3), Sweden (1), Switzerland (28), Taiwan (1), Turkey (15), UAE (unknown), USA (4) and Vietnam (1).

Behaviour of the strain

The CDC describes the emergence of the new strain as the mutational behaviour exhibited by various classes of virus. The viruses that have undergone mutation can sometimes persist or be phased out. According to the researchers, new variants have been detected in the USA, Britain, South Africa and other parts of the world. However, in Britain, various mutations have been detected and they can spread more easily than the previous one.

The new coronavirus strain is still under study to ascertain whether it makes victims susceptible to more severe illness than the previous strain. Thus, there is no existing evidence to show that the new variant could trigger severe illness and cause more risks.

Scientists unravelling the mystery

The scientists are currently on a path to unravel the mysteries surrounding the new strain. The CDC states that the researchers are angling to study how widely the virus has spread, how the new variants differ and how the diseases caused by these variants differ from the previous one.

CDC further reveals that the scientists are aiming to reveal why the new strains of the virus spread more easily, whether it can cause milder or more severe illness, whether they can be detected by the available tests, whether they are responding to the medicine and whether they will be resistant to the existing vaccines.