Just when we thought it was safe to at least think about coming out of the water perhaps by the Spring......
THE Covid variant circulating in South Africa could be resistant to the vaccine, a leading expert has suggested, but cautioned it could take just six weeks to develop a new jab if needed.
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford, said his “gut feeling” was that the vaccines already on stream would be effective against the new UK strain first identified in Kent
But he said: “I don’t know about the South African strain, I think that’s a big question mark
South Africans were placed on lockdown last week after Cyril Ramaphosa, their president, said that a new variant – 501.V2 – seemed “more contagious” than the virus from the first wave
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said on Dec 23 that two cases of the South African strain had been identified in the UK. The cases and their contacts were quarantined and the Government placed strict restrictions on travel from South Africa
Anyone who had been in contact with someone who had been in the country within the last two weeks was told they must quarantine
Sir John told Times Radio he was more concerned about this strain than the UK one “by some margin”. “The mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein,” he said. He added that the strain had mutated in the part of the virus that allows antibodies to stick to it
Anyone else too wet for seed potatoes?