UK Detects Modification of “Most Transmissible” COVID-19 Delta Variant

The British Government has confirmed that “closely follows” the appearance of a “descendant” of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which could be between 10% and 15% more transmissible than this, which is already twice as contagious as the original SARS-CoV-2.

Experts have called it “AY.4.2” and warn that its frequency has increased in the UK, where it could now be responsible for almost 10% of COVID-19 cases, as two experts have explained to the ‘Financial Times’ newspaper.

Its prevalence is increasing rapidly, but not as it did the first delta after passing from India to this country earlier this year. This “new lineage of SARS-CoV-2” is “descendant” of the delta variant (B.1.167.2) and “has two characteristic mutations” in protein S, “Y145H” and “A222V”, which could offer the virus advantages to survive, points out the expert Francois Balloux in the journal Science Media Center.

If preliminary tests are confirmed, “AY.4.2” could become the most infectious variant of the coronavirus since the pandemic began, according to Balloux, director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London. “But we must be cautious at this time.”

The United Kingdom, he specified, is the only country in which it has taken off in this way and I would not rule out that its growth is due to a fortuitous demographic event“However, it is” likely “that the World Health Organization (WHO) classifies it as a” variant under investigation “, so it would then assign it a letter of the Greek alphabet.

Even so, he has asked not to “panic”, because although it could be “slightly more transmissible” will not be “something so disastrous as what we have previously experienced. “Meanwhile, an official spokesman for the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, stressed today that the authorities follow” very closely “its evolution and assured that” we will not hesitate to take the necessary measures. “