Detected New Variant of Covid19: Is It a Sequel to the Pandemic?

By Tay Chang 

     It was March 2020 when the original Covid19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. As the disease spread from  one person to another, many health organizations and researchers  in the United States realized the urgent need to prepare a vaccine. What they didn’t know, however, was that a new Covid19 variant was detected by researchers in the United Kingdom.

     Although it seems that the new virus is an alarming issue, it doesn’t seem that there is concern for  any severe damage, at least not more than the original Covid-19. According to Daniel C. DeSimone M.D. from Mayo Clinic, “In fact, the COVID-19 variant has rapidly changed from a rare strain to a common strain in London and southeast England. But that doesn't mean the COVID-19 variant is more infectious.” In other words, the new Covid-19 variant is almost similar to the original Covid-19 since it is less likely to cause any widespread danger to other people. DeSimone adds, “There's also no evidence that the COVID-19 variant causes more-severe illness with COVID-19 or an increased risk of death due to COVID-19. In addition, the new variant isn't expected to make the COVID-19 vaccines less effective.”

     There have been other records of the new Covid-19 variant spreading throughout the U.K. and to dozens of countries. Europe has been impacted by the variant, as well as Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South America. Matthew Z. Schwartz from NPR news stated, “The variant is helping drive the current increase in cases in the U.K., which saw a massive spike in recent weeks.” There have been 315 cases recently reported a wide spreading variant of B.1.1.7 in the United States from 28 states. With the original Covid-19 infecting others, the variant can cause a number of added cases. Research suggests that the variant isn’t more deadly, but it is still very transmissible due to the vulnerable places that the virus can access (inside a nose, or the respiratory tract). 

     So far, the variant is being  further researched by health organizations. According to The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the “CDC is working to detect and characterize emerging viral variants and expand its ability to look for COVID-19 and new variants. Furthermore, CDC has staff available, on-the-ground support to investigate the characteristics of viral variants.  As new information becomes available, the CDC will provide updates.”