- The World Health Organization described it yesterday as a ‘variant under monitoring’
- Experts believe that the variant could have more than 30 mutations in its spike protein.
A new variant of Covid dubbed the ‘real deal’ is already in the UK, health experts said today.
A case of the Omicron spin-off has reportedly been confirmed in London, which has been placeholder-named BA.X but has yet to be officially designated.
It comes less than a day that the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that it was officially tracking the variant.
The strain is now classified as a ‘currently circulating variant under monitoring’ by the UN health agency.
Alarm bells about the strain first rang earlier this week, after a prominent online virus tracker detected cases that initially emerged in Denmark.
The discovery came just one day after the same lineage was detected in Israel.
A case of the Omicron spin-off has reportedly been confirmed in London, which has been placeholder-named BA.X but has yet to be officially designated.
Yesterday, online variant trackers also suggested a fourth case had been detected in Michigan.
Some scientists have already called for the return of face masks due to the derivative strain.
Others, however, warned that it is too soon to panic and stressed that lockdown-era restrictions will not be necessary.
UK health chiefs have yet to make any formal announcements about the variant.
But Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases and microbiology, said in a tweet that a patient had reportedly been hospitalized at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital in London with the “highly mutated” strain.
Samples of the variant have been sent to King’s College London’s School of Immunology and Microbial Sciences, it added.
The infection had been acquired ‘locally’, he said, later adding that there was no ‘immediately obvious’ connection between the cases reported in Denmark, Israel and the US.
A process called ‘sequencing’ allows scientists to find the exact genetic makeup of each virus sample.
Early tests show that BA.X carries more than 30 mutations in its spike protein, the part of the virus that attaches to human cells and causes infection.
This is the same part of the virus that vaccines are designed to target.
Several have unknown functions, but others are thought to help the virus evade the immune system.
The confirmation of the case also comes amid a spike in virus cases, raising fears of a new wave as Britain heads into autumn and winter, when the NHS is busiest.
Data from the NHS hospital also shows that daily Covid admissions in England have risen by a third in a week, rising from 171 on July 28 to 229 on August 4, the latest figures available.
Hospitalizations had been in free fall nationally since March, from a peak of nearly 1,200.
However, in early July, these numbers began to pick up, increasing slightly.
But, current admission levels are nowhere near levels seen previously in the pandemic, when a peak of 4,100 admissions per day was recorded.
And, as time goes by, fewer and fewer admissions are directly due to the virus. Instead, many patients are ill by chance.
