UK fears Indian COVID-19 variant could be more dangerous

COVID-19 situation in India is getting out of hand, as the government lead by Narendra Modi's BJP is currently busy in doing election campaigning in West Bengal where people gathered in large numbers can be seen. The new "Indian COVID-19" variant is rumoured to be the most dangerous that affects people under the age of 30. On Saturday, India recorded more than 1500 deaths and a day before the country recorded more than 260,000 cases of COVID-19 in just one day. The massive number forced several states to impose weekend lockdowns.

United Kingdom is investigating some cases of alleged Indian variant. A Chief Scientist stated that there is not enough data to classify it as a "change of concern."

Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England said some evidence had been discussed in the UK that did not relate to travel, with their origin now staying examined.

More than 70 cases have been identified in England and Scotland.It is more too soon to decide if India should be put on the government's travel "red list", Dr Hopkins said.

According to the latest state figures, the UK recorded 1,882 new coronavirus cases and ten deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

The number of deaths reported at weekends tends to be cheaper because of reporting delays.

Meanwhile, higher than 32.8 million people own had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while more expensive than 9.9 million examples have had their second dose.

Dr Hopkins, the chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace, told the Andrew Marr Show: "We have seen a couple of cases of the Indian variant] that haven't arisen from travel, but we're still trying to undergo the investigations to look in great detail at where they might have acquired it from.

"To escalate it up the ranking, we need to know that it is built transmissibility, improved severity or vaccine confusing, and we just don't have that yet."

Public Health England says 73 cases of the alternative first known in India have been found in England, and four in Scotland.Epidemiologist Dr Mike Tildesley said work needed to be done primarily on finding out more on the variant.

He said: "I would ever say when those new opportunities do emerge, it is a concern, and it's noted that we get as much data as we can as quickly as possible.

"What's worrying of the Indian title is there appear to be two mutations which... may make the vaccines less efficient, and may make the virus more transmissible.

"The key systems here is 'may'. We are still waiting to gather data about this."