The Indian health ministry’s joint Covid-19 joint monitoring group will on Monday meet to discuss the new mutant coronavirus strain that has cropped up in the United Kingdom. A mutation of the novel coronavirus that appears to speed its transmission has led British officials to impose the country’s most stringent lockdown since March.
Nearly a third of England’s population has entered a lockdown, four days before Christmas, as authorities warned that the new strain of the virus was going “out of control”. The new variant of the virus has spread rapidly in London and South East England. U.K. government medical experts said the variant now accounts for more than 60% of the new infections reported in London. The variant has mutations that may allow it to replicate and transmit more efficiently. British officials have said the variant was as much as 70% more transmissible, but that figure is based on modeling and has not been confirmed. Several European countries are considering banning flights coming from the United Kingdom to prevent the spread of the new strain of the coronavirus. The new variant in the UK was first seen in mid-September in London and Kent. By December, it had become the “dominant variant” in London.
