Japan on Friday confirmed a new coronavirus variant that infected nearly 100 people.
© (Behrouz Mehri / Pool / AP)
A medical worker fills a dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Tokyo Medical Center in Tokyo on Wednesday, February 17, 2021. The first coronavirus shots in Japan were given to health workers on Wednesday, starting a vaccination campaign that is considered important considered to hold the already delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo. (Behrouz Mehri / Pool photo via AP)
Reuters reports that Katsunobu Kato, general secretary of the cabinet, told reporters that 91 infections had been documented in the Kanto area in eastern Japan and that two other cases had been discovered at airports.
“It can be more contagious than conventional strains, and if it continues to spread domestically, it could lead to a rapid increase in cases,” Kato said.
The variant has a mutation on the protein that can lower the effectiveness of vaccines.
The National Institute of Infectious Diseases said that the variant apparently originated overseas, but it differs from other variants that spread in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, Japan has more than 422,000 cases of the virus and 7,360 deaths.
The country’s health ministry reports that Japan has reported 150 cases of the other variants first found in Britain, South Africa and Brazilian travelers.
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The variants have hampered the prospect of the outbreak, speculating that the highly contagious strain first documented in the UK could become the dominant in the US in March.
Experts said it was now a race to get as many people vaccinated as possible to control the spread of the variants.
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