British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discussing with his senior ministers on Saturday what urgent action to take after it was confirmed that a new strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could spread more quickly and lead to a surge in cases.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that while there was no current evidence the variant of the novel coronavirus caused a higher mortality rate or impacted vaccines, urgent work was underway to confirm this.
“We have alerted the World Health Organization and are continuing to analyze the available data to improve our understanding,” Whitty said in a statement. (CBC)