The new coronavirus variant found in the UK is not out of control yet, said the World Health Organization. “We have had a much higher (contamination rate) at different points in this pandemic and we’ve got it under control,” WHO’s emergencies chief Michael Ryan told a press conference. “So this situation is not in that sense out of control. But it cannot be left to its own devices.” The World Health Organization (WHO) will convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter a new, more infectious coronavirus strain that emerged in Britain, its European chief said on Tuesday. He did not give a date for the meeting.
“We have to find a balance. It’s very important to have transparency, it’s very important to tell the public the way it is, but it’s also important to get across that this is a normal part of virus evolution,” WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan told an online briefing. “Being able to track a virus this closely, this carefully, this scientifically in real-time is a real positive development for global public health, and the countries doing this type of surveillance should be commended.” Citing data from Britain, WHO officials said they had no evidence that the variant made people sicker or was more deadly than existing strains of COVID-19, although it did seem to spread more easily.
WHO officials said coronavirus mutations had so far been much slower than with influenza and that even the new UK variant remained much less transmissible than other diseases like mumps. They said vaccines developed to combat COVID-19 should handle the new variants as well, although checks were underway to ensure this was the case. “So far, even though we have seen a number of changes, a number of mutations, none has made a significant impact on either the susceptibility of the virus to any of the currently used therapeutics, drugs or the vaccines under development and one hopes that will continue to be the case,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told the briefing. The WHO said it expects to get more detail within days or weeks on the potential impact of the highly transmissible new coronavirus strain.
