According to one of the government’s scientific advisory groups, the COVID-19 variant identified in England last month may have a higher risk of causing death, although the information is limited, ITV political editor Robert Peston said , Said on Twitter on Friday.
Early evidence suggests that the variant of the coronavirus that originated in the UK may be more deadly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
“In addition to faster distribution, it also appears that there is evidence that the new variant – the variant first identified in London and the south-east – may be associated with a higher mortality rate,” Johnson said.
“It is largely the impact of this new variant that means the NHS is under such intense pressure.”
Although the new variant is more contagious, British health and science officials have so far said there is no evidence that it is more deadly or has caused more serious illness.
However, Peston said the government’s new and emerging advisory group on virus-threatening respiratory viral threats (Nervtag) had now concluded that it could be “a little more deadly than the existing strain.”
He quoted a statement from Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College and a member of Nervtag, as saying: “It is a realistic possibility that the new British variant increases the risk of death, but there is still uncertainty.”
No one was immediately available for comment from the UK Department of Health, which discussed Nervtag.
The statement quoted by Peston set out an increased risk of death with the variant by 1.3 times, but also emphasized that only some types of tests could specify which variant of the virus a patient had.
“The biggest caveat is that we only know which tribe people are infected with for about 8% of the deaths,” Peston Ferguson was quoted as saying, adding further restrictions on the available data.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, told the BBC that the evidence on mortality “is not yet strong”.
He said: ‘I want to emphasize that there is a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and that we need more work to deal with them precisely, but it is obviously worrying that it has an increase in mortality and an increase in transferability. . “
The new variant appears to be about 30% more lethal.
For example, with 1,000 60-year-olds infected with the old variant, ten can be expected to die. But it rises to about 13 with the new variant.
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