New Covid virus strain likely evolved in UK

New Delhi, Dec 23 : The new strain of the Covid-19 virus which is said to be more infectious is likely to have evolved in the UK.
Nick Loman, Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on December 15 that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20 per cent of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10 per cent in Essex, and 3 per cent in Suffolk.
“There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he is quoted to have said in the BMJ.
UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has told Parliament that a new variant of Covid-19 has been identified and may be driving infections in the south east. However, this is not the same as saying that it is causing the rise, the BMJ report said.
Loman explained: “This variant is strongly associated with where we are seeing increasing rates of Covid-19. It’s a correlation, but we can’t say it is causation. But there is striking growth in this variant, which is why we are worried, and it needs urgent follow-up and investigation.” The BMJ report said that SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, and mutations arise naturally as the virus replicates. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, but only a very small minority are likely to be important and to change the virus in an appreciable way. COG-UK says that there are currently around 4000 mutations in the spike protein.